For our group dinner in Mattituck, we tried out a restaurant in a nearby town that Jenn had mentioned was relatively new. Similar to my other dining experience in this part of Long Island, I found this place to be adorable and super cozy and homey. In fact, the place really just looked like someone's house that was turned into a restaurant. Since we were such a large group, they gave us our own private room upstairs which was great. I think it was literally someone's bedroom because there was a built in closet in the corner.
The menu here is also very farm friendly with a variety of small and large plates. With a group this large, we decided it would just be easier to order our own dishes rather than trying to split a bunch of dishes among 9 people. The menu has got a little bit of everything: small raw bar selection, meat and cheese plates, soups and salads, a variety of pastas, and then a bunch of seafood and meat based small and large plates. I opted to go for the hierloom tomato salad ($10) and the pan roasted Long Island blackfish ($24). I know that a tomato salad seems to basic but since we were literally in farmland, I figured that it must be a fantastic and fresh salad - which it was. The tomatoes were ripe and juicy and served with a delicious burrata cheese, basil, basil aioli, and sea salt. It's your classic summer salad and it was a great start to the meal. After grilling for most of the weekend, I was excited to have some fish for dinner instead of meat, although I was a bit skeptical about this one because it was served with banana salsa. I would have never envisioned banana and fish working together. But it actually worked for this dish. It was a fairly large piece of blackfish with a gentle sear of the skin on the outside and served with a Thai green curry, black rice and the banana salsa. The fish was perfectly roasted and despite its name, it's really more of a firm white fish with a very mild taste to it. It's very similar to a cod, sea bass or tilefish. The banana salsa actually gave the dish some nice notes of sweetness to it without being too overpowering. I also loved the presentation of the meal - it was very elegant but not in a snotty way. Other people got the corn and watermelon salad, the shrimp special, the duck tacos and the pappardelle with lobster. Everyone seemed pretty happy with their dishes across the board.
Overall, it was a great dinner in a lovely setting. I loved that we got a private room (which in New York would most likely have cost us extra or forced us to order from a prix fixe menu) and that we were just able to enjoy ourselves as if we were in someone's home. The food was inventive yet still pretty simple and it had a really nice local vibe. The great news was that the same people who own the place are going to cater our friend's wedding, so I'm incredibly excited to see what kind of yummy food we'll be having in a few months. Total bill: $112/pp with tax, tip and tons of wine
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