East End Eats: Was It Late-Season Ennui?

Backyard at Solé East

90 Second House Road

Montauk

631-668-9739

Sunday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m.

Friday and Saturday, 8 a.m.-11 p.m.

Sunday Brunch, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Solé East is an interesting looking place. For sure, it jumped on the “every lemming goes to Montauk” bandwagon early on. This location used to be Shepherd’s Neck Inn, a rather gloomy Tudor-style building. It was spruced up a few years ago and now has rooms and little cabins for the staggering price of $500 per night in season. The grounds are pretty, with lots of lawn, little private areas, a spot for volleyball, a firepit, D.J.s, and the currently required trend of lots and lots of lounging chaises.

Walk through an allée of bamboo and you reach the Backyard restaurant, which, on the evening of our visit, remained empty the entire time, not because there were no customers, but because everyone chose to dine outside by the pool. The restaurant itself is plain and simple, white with white director’s chairs.

Walking around the grounds on the night of our visit, it appeared that the staff had succumbed to some kind of late-season ennui. A gazillion wet towels were on the ground, draped on loungers, strewn atop umbrellas. Patches of dry sod adorned the walkways to the little cabins where ancient, rusty Friedrich air conditioners struggled to cool the interiors. Not very classy.

The outdoor dining tables were decorated with Mason jars with an inch of old water and one sad, deliquescing, white chrysanthemum. Upon being seated you get some slices of toasted bread and a plate upon which has been laid a thin slice of butter topped with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a sprinkling of fresh thyme, kind of covering all the bases. This would be tasty if the butter wasn’t verging on rancidity.

We began our meal with clam chowder, clams casino, tuna tartare, and Backyard salad. The clam chowder, we all agreed, was quite good. It was creamy and rich with a good balance of clams, potatoes, and bacon. The clams casino, five very small clams, were pretty good, but we couldn’t detect the jalapeno and basil mentioned on the menu. They were more bready, garlicky, bacony.

The tuna tartare was nicely prepared with lots of little chunks of ginger. It was served with the Backyard’s homemade yucca chips, which were delicious. The salad was a basic mesclun mix with cucumbers, chickpeas, and golden beets.

For entrees we ordered a pappardelle with ragu sauce, sea scallops, herb-brined chicken, and striped bass. The pappardelle was pretty good, the pasta cooked al dente and the meat sauce “damned adequate” as my father used to say. The sea scallop dish was the only entree that looked like a little effort went into the plating presentation. Five seared scallops were topped with a mild saffron aioli, there were four dollops of quinoa, and some artsy drizzles of balsamic vinegar and spoonfuls of Thai sweet chili sauce. The scallops were cooked just enough, seared and caramelized, but the Thai chili sauce added too much additional sweetness for my guest’s taste.

The herb-brined chicken was very good, tender and tasty. It was served with a few garlic-flecked fingerling potatoes and broccolini.

The striped bass was abysmal. It was way, way, way overcooked and served with no more than a grilled lemon half and more broccolini. The scallop dish and striped bass were supposed to be served with an additional side dish, but our waiter neglected to point this out, and it is our fault as well for not paying more attention to the menu. Ergo, the hefty prices of $38 and $36 respectively were especially painful.

The service on the night of our visit was good, other than our waiter neglecting to tell us that a side dish was included with our grill items. Prices at Backyard are expensive for what you get. Appetizers are $10 to $19, pastas are $25 to $36, entrees are $28 to $42, sides are $8, and desserts are $9.

For dessert, all made in house, we tried the orange creme brulee, berry crumble, and tiramisu. All three were good. The orange creme brulee had a faint hint of orange and a good sugar crust, the mixed-berry crumble had a crunchy granola-like topping, and the tiramisu was rich and boozy with rum.

The Solé East website describes the menu at Backyard as “a healthy and simple approach to market-fresh cuisine.” To our thinking, that would be ripe tomatoes and sweet corn at this time of year. But it was broccolini squared.

I didn’t get the impression that Backyard is a destination restaurant, but rather a convenient, yet pricey, place for the hotel’s guests to eat.