Wine Dinners Last Shout
The Nick and Toni's wine dinners will go out with a bang next Thursday with a salute to rosé, the ever popular summertime quaff. They will then take a summer siesta and be back in the fall.
The focus will be on "age-worthy" rosés made from a variety of grapes, paired with a tasting menu by Nick and Toni's chef, Joseph Realmuto, and Kelsey Roden, the pastry chef. The wines will all have release dates prior to 2022. These wines have very limited availability, but what is available can be purchased with special event pricing with an order placed at Domaine Franey during the dinner.
An extra course has been added and more wines to try in side-by-side comparisons. The cocktail reception will have duck rillettes and rhubarb, chestnut fritters, sea bream crudo, crispy squash blossoms, and charcuterie with pickled garden vegetables. The wine will be an aglianico made in Campania.
During the first course, a tommette de chevre with frisee and baby beets, two pinot noirs will go head to head, one from Germany and one from California. The second course's sweet pea ravioli with prosciutto will be paired with a wine made from gamay grapes in California. The third course offers prawns with garlic basil oil and baguette with a paired taste of wines from Corsica and Spain. A fourth course of Wagyu top sirloin, fondant potatoes, sauce verte, and creme fraiche, comes with a match-up of two wines from Bandol using mourvedre grapes. Finally, guests can toast the beginning of the season with a brut rose from Burgundy served with a strawberry rhubarb tart and a chocolate eclair.
Because of the extra wine servings and the additional course, the price for this dinner is $200, not including tax and tip. Reservations can be made through the website or directly on Resy.
One More Market
The East End Farmers Markets have opened one more location in Bridgehampton at the Corwith House of the Bridgehampton Museum on Montauk Highway. The market will be there every Thursday from 3 to 6 p.m. through September.
Duck and Rosé
Almond Restaurant will host a duck and rosé dinner next Thursday at 7 p.m. The meal will be served family style with six different dishes using duck with local ingredients matched with six different wines from Channing Daughters Winery. The cost is $140 per person and tickets can be purchased on Open Table.
The dishes are focaccia, duck mortadella, and arugula, duck cobb salad, asparagus with duck prosciutto, spicy duck consomme with shrimp balls, crispy dry aged duck with ramps, and strawberry rhubarb pop tarts with duck fat frosting.
Food for a Cause
Speaking of Almond, Jason Weiner, the executive chef and an owner of Almond Restaurant, will provide the food for a benefit sponsored by Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor on June 10. The evening of appetizers and hors d'oeuvres will include deviled eggs, chicken liver pate crostini, house smoked bluefish with dill and cucumber, beef pigs in a blanket, and mini crab cakes. There will also be dips and spreads with local vegetables (marinated, roasted & pickled); grilled sour dough, bread sticks, and pita; charcuterie, and dumplings with dipping sauce.
The event, which begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Bridgehampton Community House, will also feature Inda Eaton's music. It will benefit the Temple Adas Israel Road Forward Scholarship Fund. The fund provides financial support "to students who have an involvement in social justice and demonstrate financial need, to help ease the burden of post-high school academic or vocational costs." Tickets can be purchased at ticketstripe.com/RFScholarships.
Bite-Size Morsels
We hear that Kate Usher, a local singer, has opened Bambi's Cafe in Montauk at 33 Carl Fisher Plaza. The new business is serving organic smoothies, bowls, salads, sandwiches, and healthy snacks. Four Oaks has opened a new Montauk summer location at 696 Montauk Highway in Montauk. Its focus is on healthy food as well, serving matcha, acai bowls, smoothies, and juices.
Amber Waves in Amagansett has its own summer outpost at 70 Park Place in East Hampton, which will serve lunch, salads, juices, wraps, and baked goods, in addition to selling the farm's produce and flowers. Gifts, apparel, and pantry items will also be in the inventory.
Carissa's Bakery on Newtown Lane is now open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursday through Sunday.
Ruby Murray's, which was cooking this winter and spring out of Wishbone Farms in Southampton, has found a home in the old Sag Harbor Bakery space next to the recently opened What the Falafel shop. The store, which is now open, serves Indian food with a British accent.
Old Stove Pub in Sagaponack has a sushi bar and karaoke, as well as live music Fridays and Saturdays. Pub nights happen Wednesday and Thursday with $10 drinks and appetizers.
Grindstone Donuts opened an outpost at Sag Harbor Cinema. It has coffee, doughnut holes, and Dorothy Stone's cookies and stuffed cookies, to "grab and go" or enjoy with a side of film. The satellite will operate outside of regular cinema hours as well, opening at 8 a.m. daily.
Sylvester's Modern General Store in Sag Harbor and Vine Street Cafe on Shelter Island have partnered to make a coffee barbecue sauce with Sylvester's Dreamy Coffee. It's available online or at the store.
Black Pitmasters
East End libraries will present a joint Zoom session with Debra Freeman, a podcaster and writer, covering the history of American barbecue on Wednesday at 7 p.m. She traces the role of pit masters from the early days of slavery to the spread of barbecue in the United States and its popularity today. Registration is required on local libraries' websites.
