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• 12.06.10 Artist at the Table
• 2010 Dan's Best of Best
• 09.16.2010 Talk of the
• 05.29.10 Garden to Table
• 05.24.10 New Menus
• 04.22.10 Melting Pot
• 04.08.10 Lechon, Estia Style
• 11.5.09 Words of Wisdom
• 11.14.09 The Juicy Naam
• Oct 09 Plum TV Clips
• Oct 09 Edible East End
• 10.04.09 Wine Dinner
• The New Hamptons Classics
• 05.01.09 Summer Hours
• Braided Steak Azteca
• 03.03.09 Plum TV Clips
• March 09 Cooking Clip
• 02.06.09 Wolffer Wine Dinner
• 12.18.08 Christmas
• 11.27.08 Thanksgiving
• September 08 Old Stove
• 03.29.08 Wine Dinner
• 01.26.08 Wolffer Tasting
• 01.05.08
• 12.06.07

MELTING POT

A lifetime of cooking experiences coalesces in a roadside restaurant.

By Geraldine Pluenneke
Photograph: Lindsay Morris

Skepticism played over the documentary film director's face after he crossed the unpaved parking lot then scanned the 10 tables and six counter stools squeezed into the tiny butter-yellow restaurant. The expession changed to surprise as he sipped an award-winning rosé from Channing Daughters vineyards two miles away, then visible enthusiasm as he dug into his entrée. When I ran into Norman a month later, he grinned, "I've been back to that restaurant with friends four times since you took me there." Susan, who lives in Amagansett, returned three times after our lunch of shrimp quesadillas last month, her first time in the restaurant.

There are some who say that you can find the best Mexican food in the Hamptons in Estia's Little Kitchen on the outskirts of Sag Harbor on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike. Actually its menu reflects executive chef-owner Colin Ambrose's peripatetic travels through several score of cutting-edge kitchens across the U.S. It began as a 12-year journey in which he learned to cook and it's recorded on his menus today. In the Little Kitchen he has added Mexican flavors to his original passion for fresh, local ingredients. His craving for freshness dates back to childhood when he would cut a stalk of rhubarb in his grandfather's Midwest garden and dip it in the bowl of sugar he'd brought outside with the knife. "This is not a Mexican menu but it has those overlays," says sandy-haired Ambrose.

In the evenings when the white tablecloths come out, the feel is continental, and the presentation unfamiliar to many who haunt Tex-Mex hangouts. There is a 50-plus selection of wines, including a notable 20 from top Long Island vineyards. There are shrimp enchiladas jammed with Mexican flavors, mussels in a sophisticated tomatillo broth accompanied by thinly sliced, crisp corn tortillas instead of potatoes. There is salmon ceviche, roasted loin of pork with mole sauce, chicken and beans with sofrito rice, pozole and tortilla soups. Influenced by the Tijuana region of Mexico, there is steak Azteca, thin strips of hanger steak braided, marinated and grilled and served with potatoes glazed in a shiny tobacco-brown sauce of ground hot, smoky chilies. At lunch and breakfast along with its omelets and salads are burritos, fish tacos, quesadillas, each served with outstanding, spicy salsas made with fresh ingredients in their prime. Many locals regard the Little Kitchen proprietarily as a favorite, comfortable breakfast gathering spot, often spiked by celebrity sightings.

As Ambrose says, the Little Kitchen is not Mexican, "We don't call it Poco Cocina. We don't have strings of colored paper cutouts." It doesn't have vintage Mexican posters like that of Viva Zapata hanging at East Hampton's newly returned Blue Parrot or a menu heavily weighted toward casual Mexican eats. The Little Kitchen has white tablecloths and local wines, which sets it apart from the lively mix of young crowds and children at Montauk's Hideaway off West Lake Drive, or Amagansett's La Fondita, one of the most authentic East End spots with Mexicans doing Mexican food in a Mexican environment. Ambrose's focus on local ingredients differs from the long-established, nine-unit Meson Ole's familiar Mexican-Spanish dishes. Funcho's Fajita Grill in Riverhead and Westhampton Beach is more traditional Mexican-American. Ambrose delights in patronizing two South Fork groceries for Mexican ingredients: Amagansett's Chiquita Latina and Sag Harbor's Agave, which serves excellent hot carnitas, a benchmark for Mexican take-out kitchens.

Ambrose entered the restaurant business on a chilly January day in 1991 when he first walked into Estia, a Greek coffee shop in Amagansett and 10 days later owned it. He'd had a decade in the restaurant industry as a writer and consultant under his belt. Then came several amuses-bouches of fate.

A week before the restaurant was to begin its second high season, the chef walked out. An untrained Ambrose headed to the stove and soon was turning out fresh pasta flavored with spinach, basil and fresh ingredients of the season. Next, Lorne Michaels, executive producer of "Saturday Night Live" invited Ambrose to grow vegetables for the restaurant on almost an acre. And so one of Estia's specialties became a two-hour salad, ingredients harvested less than 120 minutes before service began. This summer, on its one acre of land, a new one-third acre kitchen garden will supply the restaurant with herbs and vegetables. The Little Kitchen also supplements its menu with a small harvest of its own fruit-peaches, rhubarb, raspberries, strawberries, even kiwis. For three weeks into early August you'll taste, for example, blueberries from its 35 high-bush blueberry stand.

There were hints of Mexico from the start. Alec Baldwin hankered for a burrito filled with scrambled egg whites, a veggie burger, vegetables and Jack cheese, and it's still on the menu as "big Al's burrito" with a house-made veggie burger used only for that dish. Early on, Ambrose's memorable Turtle Roll, his suburban American mother's recipe, landed on the menu. Mexican flavors-among them fresh cilantro, ripe tomatoes, beans, corn and onions-are rolled in a tortilla then sliced like sushi or a California roll. "We started to migrate into Mexican flavors," recalls Ambrose who wanted a "point of difference" to set himself apart from competitors in the newly, hot Hamptons, "and because the majority of people on my staff were Mexican. It started with salsa in Amagansett's Estia, then it went to bean purees, then it went to enchiladas, then tamales. These were all specials, items that were the icing on the cake. Then they became the cake."

It certainly didn't hurt that some employees like then main chef Ruben Bravo were hardwired to produce the "authentic flavor profile" that Colin hankered for. Bravo once explained that if he wanted to capture remembered flavors, he phoned his mother in her little village in Mexico for exact instructions. Ambrose sold Estia in Amagansett in 2004. But today those cooking and serving in Estia's Little Kitchen, some of whom have been there since Ambrose bought it in 1999, bring a similar expertise from their south-of-the-border heritage. Staff like Pamela Donzalez, Julia Hernandez, and Raul Dina hail from Puebla (pozole and occasional mole dishes) and Acapulco (tortilla soup and fish tacos). Rounding out the regular team during a frenetic spring Sunday brunch hour is Vi Dao, from Vietnam.

Flavors from the Ambrose kitchen remain built on fresh ingredients, one of the secrets of why a Little Kitchen taco or quesadilla is packed with flavors that elude most American Mexican restaurants. He is adamant about quality. "My salsa costs me $18 a gallon to make," more than double the price of commercial salsas. The skill of his staff underlies what arrives on your plate. Then there is Ambrose's passion for implanting leitmotifs from one cuisine to another to create a dinner menu, for example, that feels Mexican, but actually isn't.

In the late 90s, Ambrose toured Mexico to nail down the flavors he had been playing with, just as he had earlier explored the techniques of restaurant kitchens by working two or three short stints a year in them as a guest during his slow winter seasons. He first worked on the kitchen lines of such restaurants as Charlie Palmer's Aureole, Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill and Bolo and Michael Romano's Union Square Café in Manhattan, then on to Susan Spicer's Bayona in New Orleans and Michael Mina's Aqua in San Francisco. "I was in my 30s and I was the oldest guy on the line by 10 years. It was brutal." His quest then turned cerebral, exchanging the line for words, writing and interviewing another 22 chefs on kitchen chops. "Each experience I had would then influence my menu for the next season. I didn't steal recipes, I watched the way they put things together." For example, Charlie Palmer's potato-crusted scallops emerged as potatocrusted local flounder, still a winner on the Little Kitchen menu.

Early in October, Ambrose held the first of a series of special fivecourse dinners featuring local food people and wines in a menu incorporating five cheeses from Lucy's Whey and wines from the North Fork's Bouké Vineyard. A raw food dinner with Giuliana Torre of East Hampton's Juicy Naam was help just before Thanksgiving.

Under Ambrose's tutelage, his three daughters aged 16 to 10 as a summer job formed A. Sisters Food Co. and made and sold fresh, flavored pastas at local farmers markets and gourmet shops including Lucy's Whey last season. The Ambrose trio will be back at farm stands with their fresh pasta in mid-June at the start of school vacation. Meanwhile, if you're pondering Estia's Little Kitchen menu, consider that the burritos are worth ordering if only for their accompanying third-inch-thick fried potatoes rendered almost soufflé-airy by a technique collected along Ambrose's kitchen apprenticeship journey.

Little Estia is open six days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner (dinner opening varies out of season). Closed Tuesdays. 1615 Sag Harbor Bridge Hampton Turnpike, Sag Harbor, two miles West of Village. 631.725.1045.

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Lechon, Estia Style

By Joanne Pilgrim (04/08/2010)

Colin Ambrose, the chef and owner at Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor, has added menu items centered on the Latin-style lechon, a small, whole-roasted pig.

Dishes from breakfast to dinner incorporate parts of the pig, from Auggie’s Breakfast Bowl, a dish with pork, sautéed egg whites, avocado, and other vegetables, and a “gringo hash” with rice, beans, and corn tortillas served with the pork, to a lunchtime Cubano sandwich, featuring sliced roasted pork with avocado and queso fresco, served with tortilla soup.

At dinnertime, Mr. Ambrose offers an entree centered on the main cut of the lechon, including both dark and light meat, with rice and beans in a chile sauce. Other parts of the pig are used, too, to flavor posole, for instance, or to make crunchy chicharrones, which are served with salad.

During April, Estia’s Little Kitchen is serving dinner on Friday and Saturday beginning at 5:30 p.m. Breakfast and lunch are served daily, except Tuesday, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

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WORDS OF WISDOM FROM

Chef Colin Ambrose

Chef Colin Ambrose has a fresh perspective on food. Colin is the chef and owner of year-round restaurant Estia's Little Kitchen and executive chef and managing partner at seasonal restaurant The Old Stove, both located in the Hamptons in Long Island, New York. Colin believes in cooking with farm fresh ingredients that are in season. I have had the privilege of eating at both of his restaurants in Sag Harbor and Wainscott, Long Island as well a meal prepared by Colin in his home. He has that rare ability to creatively pull together a great dinner with seeming ease. He makes it look simple, yet many of us who have tried to pull off this feat while chatting with guests will testify, it can be complicated. Colin has a natural intuition for creating delicious food, which may help to explain the popularity of both of his restaurants.
I chatted with Colin about a relatively simple salad that can be made in advance using the bounties of the season. When he makes this salad, he looks for 2 specific apples, one soft for baking and one crisp and sweet for a match-stick cut that would compliment a sharp cheddar sliced the same way.

"A crisp, sweet apple tells
it's own story, a good
baker will be softer, rounder and less
assertive on the first bite. In time, if
you live near the trees you'll
know which one produces the
best results from an oven or on the
breakfast table. If you don't know
the tree let the first bite
guide the menu. "

by Colin Ambrose

Apple and Camembert Harvest Salad

• 1 crisp sweet apple
• 1 good baking apple
• 1 small wheel camembert
• 1 small piece sharp white cheddar
• 10 stems flat leaf parsley
• 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup apple cider
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Remove the core from the apple, don't peel it, but remove core with a thin knife top to bottom.
Place the apple on a small baking sheet and pour 1/2 cup of water on the sheet then wrap with foil.
Place in the oven @ 400 for 25 min. or until soft butstill firm.
Remove and chill.

Just prior to service slice the crisp apple into thin match sticks and place in a bowl. Then slice the same amount of cheddar to the same size and combine.
Remove the baked apple from the fridge and slice into thin wedges, then place a slice of camembert on each plate. Top each slice of cheese with a quartered baked apple slices and then top the apple slices with a smaller piece of cheese (from the rind cut).

On the opposite side of the plate create a pile (2 tablespoons) of the crisp apple/ cheddar matchstix. Garnish with parsley stems and touch the parsley with drops of vinaigrette.
To make Vinaigrette combine the juice of 1 lemon with apple cider and olive oil, pour into a squeeze bottle and shake.You'll have lot of extra apple cider vinaigrette so keep cold for your next fall salad.

This Article was taken from the Nest

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Estia's new Plum TV ads

Surf Report: An Edible East End Update, We Mean

Monday, 05 October 2009 21:25 Brian Halweil
link to article directly

Working with Edible East End, our sister magazine out there at the sleepy shore, Hamptons restaurants also turned out for last week's Edible Eat Drink Local Week. And in a great food chain display of love, diners turned out to support these chefs, including Edible East End, which hit six spots last week. (We know, we know, Edible Manhattan hit six in one night, but you just can't nabe-hop like you can in the big city.)

There was a kickoff dinner hosted by the duet of dynamic duos that is the North Fork Table and Inn, where front of the housers Mike and Mary Mraz hosted a party of 40 in their very cozy private room for a tasting of roasted baby beets with Catapano goat cheese, Block Island fluke crudo, hickory-smoked Long Island duck breast, and honey-Catapano ricotta cheese tart courtesy of chefs Jerry Hayden and Claudia Fleming. Duck was also on the menu a few nights later at Scrimshaw on the dock in Greenport, which offered a $35 Edible Week prix fixe, paired with Bedell wines and local Crescent Duck Farms duck confit spring rolls (perhaps the best spring rolls we've had here out east), a bayaldi of fall vegetables from Sep's Farms, and warm five spice apple cake.

At Nick & Toni's in East Hampton, meanwhile, we ate Balsam Farm heirloom tomato salad and zucca pizza made with winter squash and ricotta. Their sister restaurant, Rowdy Hall, also had striped bass with artichoke mashed potatoes, local heirloom tomatoes and basil broth at dinner, plus a fried local FLT (flounder, lettuce and tomato) sandwich for lunch.

If that's not a guilty enough pleasure, Bay Burger, our local burger drive-in in Sag, offered a special local onion soup with Mecox Dairy cheese grated on top of a submerged hamburger bun half. And just across the Turnpike, Estia's Little Kitchen whipped up a particularly thoughtful five course meal: a breakfast special (Bette & Dale's arugula, Quail Hill fingerling potato and Catapano goat cheese omelette), a few lunch specials (including housemade Long Island duck egg linguini with local clams), and the tour-de-force: a $50, five-course dinner to close the week featuring wines from the North Fork's Bouke and a selection of cheeses from Lucy's Whey in East Hampton.

Think apple timbal duo, roasted Quail Hill pepper and zucchini Napoleon layered with Vermont shepherd cheese, fresh L.I. duck egg papparadelle with Dave's oyster mushrooms and super aged Gouda, pan roasted venison and fingerling potatoes, and house grown rhubarb and raspberry tart with Catapano chevre. So, do you wanna come out to the Hamptons this fall yet or what?

Estia's is part of "The New Hamptons Classics" on askmelissa.com,
click here to check it out.

Cooking with Colin

The Old Stove Pub in Sagaponack

With Colin Ambrose as the Executive Chef, Partner and Creative Director of the area's oldest Steakhouse, The Old Stove Pub in Sagaponack opened its doors again.

The East Hampton Press & The Southampton Press

Old Stove Pub opens again in Sagaponack

The Old Stove Pub, irreverent and mysterious, and stubbornly refusing to fade into restaurant history, has once again opened its doors on Montauk Highway in Sagaponack.

Fans of the Stove, which first opened in 1969, will be happy to learn that Coula Johnides is still there—her brother Stephen died a few years ago—the chairs and tables are still plastic, and the 3-inch-thick steaks are still charred to a crisp. The menu hasn’t changed: It’s still nothing but big cuts of meat and Greek specialties. But it is now shepherded by veteran local chef Colin Ambrose, owner of Estia’s Little Kitchen.

A new investor has financed a sprucing up of the restaurant—the pictures of famous guests from years past are in new frames, and the red-and-white-checkered rubberized picnic tablecloths have been replaced with red-and-white-checkered linen picnic tablecloths—and has it slowly rolling back into business.

“As soon as we put the sign out, people were coming in saying, ‘I can’t believe you’re open,” said manager Tim Luzadre.

The restaurant opened July 2 and is open Sunday through Thursday, and for now is closed on weekends. Mr. Luzadre said the schedule likely will change as the new staff settles in.

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Newsday.com

Old Stove Pub
3516 Montauk Hwy.
Sagaponack, NY
631-537-3300

Crusty as its charred steaks, Old Stove Pub reopened last month as if it had never closed. Anti-vogue and trend-free, the joint that thrived offering tough love for the pampered now says, "Welcome back." But the revival still keeps some of the spare style reflected in the poetic motto that defined it: "Fed up with the chic, come to the Greek."

Coula Johnides, who ran it with her brothers, bridges past and present. New: the influence of chef Colin Ambrose, of Estia's Little Kitchen, who has kept most of the original menu and added a salmon in a pomegranate reduction. Weathered white signs advertising the Greek fare and steaks have been repainted; washed over, the faded come-on almost immortalizing a quote ("Country dining at its peak") that must have been one of the last public comments from Cue magazine (d. 1976). Waterproof, checked table covers have given way to checked linen. And you can catch that glimpse of sunset from the preferred tables on the wraparound deck, where movie-star and theater-celeb publicity shots are framed and chairs are plastic.

Follow the neon arrow, park on the grass. Contrarian to the last, Old Stove Pub is closed Friday and Saturday this summer.

THE BEST

A stack of sliced red onion, ripe tomato and mild feta cheese, followed by savory moussaka, or tender baked shrimp finished with tomatoes, basil and more feta. The signature: sunset steak, a 21/2-inch-thick, fibrous $58 slab of bone-in sirloin, black outside, rosy within, under wafers of butter and a solitary sprig of oregano. Colorado lamb chops, each big as a middleweight's fist, arrive assertively scorched but juicy. Break up the minimalist tableau with fries.

THE REST

Coula's Wedge means routine iceberg with Thousand Island dressing; saganaki, the baked cheese appetizer, hard-edged, nearly torched. Spinach with garlic oil, bland. Baklava, standard. The everlasting "cold fudge sundae" caps ordinary ice cream with a dense topping suitable for frosting cupcakes.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Time machine.

Reviewed by Peter M. Gianotti, 8/13/08.
Hours
Dinner, Sunday to Thursday, 6-10 p.m. Closed Friday and Saturday.

Ambience: Fair
Cuisine: Greek
Major Credit Cards Accepted: Yes
Price Range: Very Expensive (More than $50)
Rating: Good (1 star)
Reservations: Required
Service: Very good

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Estia's Little Kitchen News February 29th, 2008 "Attention wine lovers, I have just the evening for you." Shinn Estate comes to The Little Kitchen Saturday, March 29th 2 seatings: 6pm & 8:15pm My menu will provide the following 5 courses along with a tasting of 5 choices from the Shinn Estate collection. Amuse: Local flounder carpaccio with blood orange & micro greens Course #1: Lemon pepper angel hair pasta w/asparagus tips & goat cheese butter Course #2: Red Lentil crusted Montauk Cod w/first of spring greens Course #3: Wild Nebraska Bison Tenderloin in mushroom soy reduction over sweet potato mash dessert: Pomegranate tapioca w/rum soaked grilled pineapple $65. Includes wine (tax & tip extra) Simply send me an email or call us colin@eatshampton.com phone 631.725.1045 Meet the wine makers, Roman Roth greets guests at January's Wolffer Estate dinner when over 60 guests enjoyed a "Taste of Germany". Wine dinners at the Little Kitchen are fun for a date or your next party. Call your friends and book our private room. Serving lunch daily noon to 3pm. Except Tuesdays.

Colin's Kitchen Chronicles Recipe #2: Sea Scallop Schnitzel Serves 4 people as main course (3 per plate) Serves 12 as appetizer 2 lb sea scallops, sliced into 3 pieces (round) 3 cups squid bodies, sliced into thin rings 2 cups Wolffer ver juice ½ cup shallots, chopped ½ cup egg whites 3 tablespoons chopped parsley ½ cup grapeseed oil 1 cup panko breadcrumbs ½ tablespoon sea salt Place the sliced squid in a sauce pan with the shallots and the ver juice, bring to a simmer, cook for 45 minutes then remove from heat and strain. Allow the squid to cool then place in a food processor and run until smooth (30 seconds) Remove to a bowl and stir in egg whites, parsley and salt. Set a sheet pan on the counter top and then line the bottom of a foil muffin cup or cup cake cup with 3 slices of the scallops then add a spoonful of the squid mixture and top with 3 more slices of scallops. Now flip the contents of the cup on to the sheet pan and repeat. When you have completed the process you should have about 12 cakes on the sheet pan. 15 minutes prior to service bring your oven to 375 and place a flat bottomed skillet over a medium flame add ½ of the oil and then dust the scallop cakes with panko, flip them over and dust side 2 then place the cakes in the hot oil 2 or 3 at a time (refresh the oil ½ way along). Allow them to brown on each side (about 2 minutes per side) then transfer to a sheet pan in the oven. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes and serve immediately with a salad of blanched celery and micro greens in citrus vinaigrette and a dash of whole grain mustard.

Make Your Dinner Reservation Today! Estia's is open 6 days a week for breakfast and lunch. Closed Tuesdays. Dinner Fridays and Saturdays. 1615 Sag Harbor Bridgehampton Turnpike call 631.725.1045 drop me a line at colin@eatshampton.com for any inquiries back to top

WOLFFER ESTATE GERMAN TASTE
SATURDAY NIGHT
JANUARY 26
DINNER SERVED @ 6:00 & 8:00

Amuse: Butternut squash soup with pomegranate reduction
Wolffer Sparkling Brut 2004

Course #1: Sea Scallop Schnitzel with micro beet and celery salad
Wolffer Reserve Chardonnay 2004

Course #2: Whole Grain Noodles in mixed mushroom cream
Wolffer Estate Selection Chardonnay 2003

Course #3: Big Apple Braised Pork Shoulder Quail hill winter greens
Wolffer Cabernet Franc 2004

Dessert: Milk Pail Fuji Apple Strudel with vanilla bean whipped cream
Wolffer Late Harvest Chardonnay 2007

$50. Includes wine (tax & tip extra)

Reservations 631-725-1045

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