March 28, 2005

Lazy Long Island weekend in Greenport off-season

NewYorkology spent the long weekend near the eastern tip of Long Island, nestled up at the Harborfront Inn at Greenport, where the wine country meets the water.

Although it's off-season and many of the restaurants and museums are closed until Memorial Day, the wine tasting rooms are open, the ferries to Shelter Island and Connecticut are operating and streets and docks are pleasantly empty of crowds.

The village was settled in 1682 and is quite proud of its maritime history, especially its bootlegging past. From our hotel room, we looked out on the docks, the ferry to Shelter Island and a 1926 carousel, which is fitted with rings for the kids to grab as they go round. If you go off-season, the East End Seaport Museum opens by appointment only.


The most outstanding find of the weekend was The Fifth Season, a three-month old restaurant where the menu changes every week depending on what's in season. We started with the potato leek soup and a frisee salad with applewood-smoked bacon, gorgonzola, spicy walnuts, poached pears and a champagne vinaigrette. For the main, I had grilled Atlantic salmon with artichoke hearts, fennel, French beans in a white wine-herb sauce. The husband went for the braised veal stew with mashed potatoes, which came served in a pretty ceramic cauldron that added to the comfort-food feel of the meal. We sat at one of the tall tables across from the kitchen, where the chefs chatted us up making sure the food was good, wondering where we were from and where we were going drinking afterward. (My husband asked about Whiskey Wind across the street, and among the lines they threw at us was that 80 percent of the kids in town were conceived after a night at Whiskey Wind.)

The food was excellent and including a bottle of local wine, our bill was $101 before tax and tip. Check out ongoing online feud over whether the restaurant is too-Manhattan for Greenport. (The Fifth Season doesn't appear to have a website so here's the info: It's located at 45 Front Street. They serve dinner only, except for brunch on Sunday. Phone: (631) 477-8500.)

The next night we stopped at the Frisky Oyster for the crab cake appetizer. And although the service at the bar was more bitchy than frisky, the crab cake was irresistible - served with one spicy sauce and a bit of cool guacamole.


In addition to the eating parts, there were drinking parts. We visited a few wineries on Saturday afternoon, finding generous pours, chatty staff and mostly uncrowded except one that had the tour bus outside and predictably no room at the counter to taste. At Broadfield's Tasting Room off Route 48, we were advised that if we come back in summer, the best way to do it is mid-week; the weekend crowds are so thick that it detracts from the fun. The Long Island wineries are known mainly for their chardonnays and merlots.

As it was, we took the car from New York City and hit far more traffic than we expected for March. Especially after the Long Island Expressway peters out into Route 25, where you hit multiple stop lights and one strip mall after strip mall after strip mall. Luckily all the Wal-Marts and mega-Pier 1s and Toys 'R' Us' fade away by the time you get to Greenport. We did take Route 48 back, which was far more bucolic and sane; though if we make a return trip it would surely be by train as Greenport is the last stop on the Long Island Railroad and the station was only a couple minutes walk from our hotel in the center of town. There is also bus service offered by Sunset Coach and the local paper said North Fork Express will start offering service into Manhattan later this spring.

Update: The Fifth Season now has a web site.

Earlier: Sipping in 'Napa Valley of the East'
Long Island wineries get boost

March 28, 2005 09:17 AM in Out of Manhattan

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