This region of Long Island is known for its food and peaceful atmosphere, unlike the Hamptons. Modern city dwellers are drawn to the peninsula’s undulating shoreline, sprawling vineyards, and hyper-regional cuisine.
Long Island, which sticks out of New York like a snake’s tongue, is a country of opposites. Brooklyn and Queens are populated boroughs on my side of the island. Middle city blocks give way to lawns and suburbia. Land’s End consists of two slender peninsulas separated by a 5-mile bay. The South Fork is where the Hamptons are located. One of them is distinct from the other.
The North Fork is more wild and isolated. It remained unique even as the Olmsteds built urban oasis communities and Walt Whitman wrote about Long Island’s hills. The Corchaug, English colonists, whalers, clammers, and nomadic farmers have lived off the land and water throughout history. Once New York City expanded westward, visitors no longer avoided the 2.5-hour drive to the region. Not yet gentrified.
In recent years, boutique hotels, artisan drinks, food, and city transplants have brought more attention to the North Fork. This is especially true now that intrastate travel is common. Despite this, there is still a land-sea link, and the locals want to keep it. I headed east on a brisk Thursday night last October to see how the neighborhood is keeping its spirit alive.
Thusday food
I woke up early at Sound View, right outside Greenport. This 1935 motel is classic in every way. It has sun-bleached wooden cottages along a secluded beach. It also symbolizes the local food revolution. After being purchased by Studio Tack (now Post Company) and Eagle Point Hotel Partners, the hotel’s 55 guest rooms were updated in 2016. Subway-tiled bathrooms and pine-paneled walls were added. Sound View is also popular with year-round North Forkers. They come for Long Island wines and cocktails.
After entering the lounge, I had a Brooklyn-inspired breakfast with chia-seed pudding, homemade cereal bars, and La Colombe coffee. While waiting for my friend Ben’s plus-one assignment, I thought, “I know 20 people who would move here tomorrow.” I was staring out over turbulent Long Island Sound. I hope not. The terroir movement is one way North Fork people preserve local relationships. I visited Cutchogue’s Bedell Cellars, a 40-year-old vineyard and winery. Ben came. Kip and Susan Bedell founded it, but Richard Olsen-Harbich, a North Fork viticulture encyclopedia, currently operates it. He told me over a glass of Petit Verdot that this is one of the newest U.S. wine districts. In the 1970s and 1980s, when the region was first planted, it wasn’t well-known. During that period, the mentality was to imitate California, he said. This region resembles the Loire Valley and northern Italy.
On Friday food
The vintners began exchanging information with foreign partners and eventually focused on Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Franc. Olsen-Harbich: “We’re increasing with more precision, information, and care” He helped develop the new Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing consortium’s principles. 22 members, representing 50% of the region’s acreage, are certified for their environmentally friendly approach to soil health, irrigation, and pest control. Kontokosta Winery and Rose Hill Vineyards are certified members. You may remark, “We’re developing our identity.”
Ben and I returned to the Sound View with a few extra bottles of Blanc de Blancs for our Halyard reservation. The restaurant, like the rest of the hotel, is perched on stilts above the water, and the interior of the dining room is decorated to resemble the interior of an old whaling ship using dark wood paneling. Chef Stephan Bogardus, 32, has cooked on Long Island for a decade. Being “of” and “for” the North Fork means supporting agriculture and small-scale fishing, according to Bogardus and his colleagues. We enjoyed a crudo of fluke from Southold Fish Market topped with green apples and a salad of lettuces and radishes from KK’s the Farm. Both were tasty. Local winemakers are used whenever possible. I sipped a white Merlot from Bridge Lane in nearby Mattituck while I looked out at the sound and food. 2018 white Merlot.
Saturday food
As we drove a few miles east toward Greenport and the East End Seaport Museum, we thought about the ocean. Althea Burns, the museum’s guide, showed us rusty harpoons, sailing club pennants, and relics from the Floyd shipping family, which made Greenport a regional centre. My favorite was the 19th-century Fresnel lens used to illuminate Bug Light. The museum offers lighthouse boat tours from May through October. Burns told us that boating is in the DNA of North Forkers; during World War II, they searched for German U-boats in repurposed boats.
A Portuguese whaler opened Claudio’s in Greenport around 1870. It’s on the NRHP. We ate fresh fish at Claudio’s for lunch. Claudio’s just changed hands after nearly 150 years of family ownership, but it’s still run much the same as it has been for decades: you eat crackly Montauk calamari and lobster bathed in melted butter, and pleasant staff members come by with a crumb scraper and Bloody Mary refill. Stephen Loffredo and Tora Matsuoka co-manage Claudio’s, which has long been part of the neighborhood’s formal and informal economy. “Bootleggers used to row up and distribute whiskey via a trapdoor in the bar,” he said.
The Sunday food
Ben and I took a tour and blending session with Matchbook Distilling’s Leslie Merinoff. Matchbook Distilling is nearby. Brooklyn native Merinoff has just returned from the Lin Beach House. She showed us how to distill our own spirits using locally grown lemongrass and coriander. Merinoff told us this in her laboratory-like area, where she grinds her own grains and makes koji, a rice mold she uses instead of malt. Young food and beverage workers are moving here, she said. Merinoff thinks immigrants should cooperate with established inhabitants to integrate. She enjoys working with local farmers. All culinary operations were biodynamic this year. The Halyard’s Matchbook gin features lavender, apricot, food, and seaweed smells. Matchbook is a smQall-batch distillery.
In the evening, we made our way west to dine at North Fork Table & Inn, a restaurant that is considered to be a leader in the newly developed cuisine of the North Fork and is located in a historic country property close to Southold. It was established in 2005 by pastry chef Claudia Fleming, winner of the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef, and her late husband, Gerry Hayden. Chef John Fraser is currently at the helm, and he recently launched a makeover and a menu revision. The original concept of the company’s founders is honored by Fraser by drawing creative food inspiration and sourcing ingredients from the local farms, vineyards, and rivers. On a brisk autumn evening in Paris, a glass of Pinot Noir from the region and a plate of gnocchi with phrazle rabbit ragoût were just what the doctor ordered.
Coupeville
Coupeville, Washington’s second-oldest town, is part of Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve. Many 19th-century buildings downtown and along the historic waterfront house art galleries, wine tasting rooms, stores, and seafood restaurants serving Penn Cove mussels. The historic red wharf and Penn Cove view are highlights of the waterfront. Coupeville is a great base for exploring Whidbey Island. Nearby attractions include ocean-view hiking trails, state parks like Fort Ebey and Fort Casey, and the Admiralty Head Lighthouse.