Business Finance Media Technology Policy Wealth Insights Interviews

Art Art Fairs Art Market Art Reviews Auctions Galleries Museums Interviews

Lifestyle Nightlife & Dining Style Travel Interviews

Power Lists Nightlife & Dining Art A.I. PR

About About Observer Advertise With Us Reprints

An Insider’s Guide to a Smarter East Hampton Weekend, With the Right Detours

Base yourself in East Hampton, then move wisely: Sag Harbor dinners, Montauk lunches, Shelter Island stays and the coffee stops, vineyards and village institutions worth the traffic.

The Hamptons has been synonymous with summer since the Long Island Rail Road first reached the South Fork in the 1870s, when New York's wealthiest families began building vacation cottages along the dunes of Southampton and East Hampton. Artists followed a few decades later, and by the mid-20th century, the potato fields of Springs had quietly become ground zero for Abstract Expressionism, with Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner working a few miles from where financiers now summer. 

That mix has never really gone away, and neither has the crowd. Nearly a century and a half after the first grand houses went up, New Yorkers still flock to the Hamptons every June for the start of summer. Increasingly, though, it doesn't empty back out after Labor Day. Restaurants that once shuttered for the season are staying open into the winter, hotels are extending their calendars, and a place built on summer has slowly become a place people visit and live nearly year-round.

From Southampton to Montauk is a span of roughly 30 to 35 miles, but despite its relatively small size, getting from one town to another can take quite a while, particularly during the summer—traffic simply crawls. For those posting up in the stretch from East Hampton through Montauk, this is the territory worth knowing well. A couple of picks sit farther afield, including a French bistro in a Southampton hotel and a lake house-style resort across the bay on Shelter Island, worth the extra half-hour, or on the way back to the city. Here’s where to stay, where to eat and what’s worth knowing long past the summer season.

An Insider's Guide to an East Hampton Weekend

Alba, Montauk Yacht Club

Ralph's Coffee, Mulford Farm Residency

LongHouse Reserve, East Hampton

Montauk Point Lighthouse

207 Main Street, East Hampton, NY 11937

When LDV Hospitality (the group best known for Scarpetta) took over a 150-year-old Greek Revival landmark on James Lane, longtime regulars had reason to be wary, but the instinct proved unnecessary. LDV kept the whitewash and the green awnings intact and simply made the interior feel like somewhere worth lingering: Frette linens, Santa Maria Novella soap, spaghetti alla Nerano on the menu in place of the usual red sauce. The location does some of the work on its own with Main Beach, and the best of village shopping and dining are both a short walk away. It remains a top answer for anyone asking where to stay in East Hampton village.

435 East Lake Drive, Montauk, NY 11954

LDV has now set up a second act forty minutes east. Barlume Beach is a 19-room hotel on seven waterfront acres overlooking Montauk Harbor, with its own marina, a beach club and a restaurant, Barlume, that extends the Mediterranean concept LDV already........

© Observer