There aren’t a lot of actual hotels in the Hamptons and the
ones that do exist are crazy expensive.
Most hotels here are not big high rise chains but are instead more like
cute B&Bs that look like fancy Victorian homes. The Maidstone falls into this category. If I didn’t know any better, I would have
assumed it was just another mega-million dollar mansion in town. It’s got cute quaint rocking chairs on the
outside porch and a swing on the other side.
The lobby literally looks like the foyer of someone’s home.
Enter The Living Room – the restaurant inside the
hotel. It feels like you are in a cozy,
almost colonial feeling living room. The
menu is Swedish-influenced, which I’m not sure what that really means besides
the fact that they had smoke salmon, shrimp sandwiches and Swedish meatballs on
the menu. Everything else seemed like
New American. I opted for the heirloom
tomato salad ($18) and the pan roasted Icelandic cod ($36) – I mean I guess
Iceland is close enough to Sweden? I noticed
that a lot of people at the table got some kind of meat option – the flat iron
steak was a popular option.
I’m a huge sucker for an heirloom tomato salad – even though
most places clearly just use that description to jack up the price of the salad
but I don’t really care. This one came
with farmstead cheese, radish, corn and a buttermilk dressing. It was a nice tossed and balanced summer
salad. While the buttermilk dressing
wasn’t as heavy as it sounds, I would have preferred a more vinegar based
dressing.
I chose the cod because I was trying to be healthier and
while it was still a solid fish dish, after seeing other people’s steak dishes,
I definitely had major steak envy. The
fish was cooked fairly well – it was a very generous portion fillet with a nice
flakey texture to it. It was served
with local calms, lima bean and natua.
It was a solid fish dish for sure but for $36 I expect to be blown away
by my dish. Of course this is the
Hamptons so everything is more expensive than it needs to be. I’m sure it was pan roasted with tons of
butter, so having the duck breast or flat iron steak probably wouldn’t have
been that much worse for me.
The service was well run considering there were 9 of us at
the table which I can only imagine is a pain the butt to manage. While I enjoyed my dinner there, I actually
think this place would be a better night cap type of place since they have a
fireplace and some open seating in the lobby.
If I were still using ¼ forks, this would be a classic case for a 3.75
fork because while the food itself was totally well done and tasty, the high
cost and lack of wow factor doesn’t really put it in a 4 fork range but I’m
feeling generous and will round up for this one. Total bill:
$70/pp with tax and tip
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