Fork It Over The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater-Mantesh by Unknown (rm book recommendations .TXT) 📕

Al says, “add ten cents for this, four cents for that? Nobody wants that crap.” I take out my money, but Al says it’s on the house.

I tell him I prefer to pay. That way I can protest the slow service by not leaving a tip.

Service has always been problematic in the Hamptons. At least with Al, you get a lopsided grin while you’re waiting three days for your burger.

On weekends in July and August, customers are routinely treated so rudely throughout the Hamptons that one veteran maître d’ says to me,

“To my worst enemy I wouldn’t advise going out to eat on a Saturday night in the summer.”

On my first Saturday night, I visit the place most recommended to me by food critics: the Old Stove Pub. Run by a Greek family, this venerable steak house is located in a tired old home on farmland between Bridgehampton and East Hampton. The sign out front says: when you’re fed up with the chic, come to the greek. I’m told by three food writers that (1) “It’s the best steak I ever had, a real down-home place, but you’ll see Demi Moore there.” (2) “It serves the best lamb chop in America.” (3) “It has the best steak in the world.” I notice that the Zagat Tri-State Restaurant Survey gives the Old Stove Pub a mediocre rating.

Based on a dinner for three, here are my Zagat-style impressions of the place. Food: terrible. Decor: worse. Service: unfathomable. Cost: high.

The food brings to mind something Wolfgang Puck told me years ago, when he was reminiscing about his days as the grill cook at Maxim’s, in Paris. Puck said that the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis “used to eat a big fillet with a lot of fat, like eating barbecued grease.” The steaks here are thick, horrendously trimmed, gristly, and charred deep-black.

On my second Saturday night, I go to The Palm, which is so popular that one restaurateur has said to me, “The maître d’ there is the richest man in the Hamptons.” The steak is a thick, tender, beautifully trimmed sirloin. The lamb chops are even better. Compared to “the Greek,” this is the Parthenon.

F O R K I T O V E R

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When I ask the maître d’, Tomas Romano, if tips from guests desperate for tables have made him the richest man in the Hamptons, he replies, “I think I am the most hated man in the Hamptons. On a Saturday night, after three hundred people are seated, there are another three hundred left out. Can you imagine how much they like me, these people who cannot get in?”

He tells me of the many famous people who come every weekend but inexplicably leaves out Billy Joel. I ask him why he is the only maître d’ in the Hamptons not to boast of his patronage.

“I do not have to say it,” he says. “He is here all the time, anyway.” A day later, I stop in at Cyril’s Fish House, located six miles east of my arbitrary Hamptons borderline, but worth a trip for its deep-fried fresh flounder coated with oregano-garlic breadcrumbs. Cyril says,

“He comes here a lot, Billy Joel. His secretary called an hour ago, looking for him.”

I’m sure that Christie Brinkley is a wonderful wife and mother, but I’m starting to suspect she’s not such a great cook.

a s t a t e m e n t f r o m b i l l y j o e l

“I am a year-rounder, and I like to sample all the local places. I’m afraid to praise one over another because they’ve all treated me so nicely. In truth, every restaurant I’ve been to has something unique and delicious to offer, from the lowest diner to the fanciest Tuscan restaurant. I am particularly partial to those places that remain open during the cold-weather months.”

Jerry Della Femina might be the most important man in the Hamptons. He has the most tables and chairs.

He is also vying for Joel’s loyalty. He opened Della Femina last August and kept it operating all winter. He opened East Hampton Point this past May with the intention of keeping it operating year-round. He is assured of stunning short-term success.

Della Femina immediately moved up alongside Nick & Toni’s in the race for maximum celebrity saturation. East Hampton Point, located 4 4

A L A N R I C H M A N

in a slightly out-of-the-way spot overlooking Joel’s yacht, was only in business for a few days when I stopped by. Its desserts were already polished works of art, particularly the fruit tart and the chocolate truffle cake.

I can imagine nothing more blissful than sitting at one of the six window tables in the main dining room, eating dessert at sunset. I can think of nothing more awesome than the clout one will require to get one of those tables on a Saturday night.

One last place.

In the center of Amagansett is the Stephen Talkhouse bar, renowned for attracting rock stars of magnitude, the kind who fill football stadiums.

For years, Elwood of Elwood and Ettie’s Dixie Smoked Barbecue labored on a deck behind the bar. When I stop by, I’m told that Elwood will not be returning. He will be missed, of course, and I have no way of knowing whether his replacement will cook as well, but I am confident I can recommend the Stephen Talkhouse bar.

Billy Joel plays there.

GQ, august 1993

T H E S A U C I E R ’ S A P P R E N T I C E

Posing as a hapless student cook—an effortless subterfuge on my part—I have infiltrated the French culinary establishment. I am enrolled at Paul Bocuse’s École des Arts Culinaires et de l’Hôtellerie, a school dedicated to the advancement of the cuisine of Lyons, a city widely admired as the gastronomic capital of France.

Here, a simple lunch might