The Hamptons Specialty

Wishbone Farms is the gourmet food store we all wish for in our neighborhoods. The weekend boxes (filled with all the bites and sauces you need to rustle up a barbecue or breakfast spread at home) are a great fix if you have guests coming over. Self-described as a “market-to-fridge” concept, their little in-store café is packed with restaurant-quality prepared foods, baked goods, and excellent iced coffees. Images courtesy of Sean Zanni.

Moby’s in-demand restaurant is still in full swing on Pantigo Road, but this little café-style outpost has us charmed. For easy weekdays when you’re feeling a breakfast pizza, crunchy salad, with a strong macchiato to finish, Moby’s Market delivers. The interior is beautifully minimal with cool Scandinavian-style furniture, subway tiles, and sage green accents. Opening in July. Images courtesy of Michelle Giang.

A lazy breakfast assembled at home and savored slowly is one of summer’s true pleasures. This season, Pop Up Bagels is bringing the NYC bagel experience to the Hamptons. Order a dozen bagels plus shmear ahead of time (check their site) or for drop-off. If you’re hosting brunch for a crowd, go for the party packages, which include smoked salmon, bagels, whitefish salad, trout row, and four different schmears to feed twenty.

At its heart, this slice of Long Island is a farming community; not taking advantage of the fresher-than-fresh produce would be a mistake. New York’s produce pop-up Alimentari Flâneur has gone back to its source with La Ferme Farmstand at Bhumi Farms. The idea behind the stand is to showcase fruits and vegetables you don’t see every day, things like barhi dates still on the vine. Expect vegan snacks from Dada Daily and regular appearances from partners like Scarr’s Pizza. Images courtesy of Sise Drummond.

If you’ve ever returned from Rome with a suitcase devoted entirely to Italianate tabletop accessories and tablecloths, Il Buco Vita is for you. The Il Buco group has expanded beyond Manhattan with a new restaurant in the Hamptons, alongside this café-meets-homeware mecca. Get going with an espresso from the cute café in the store doorway before loading your basket with glasses, trays, and ceramics from Italian producers, plus some classic treasures from John Derian. Images courtesy of Noe DeWitt.

We have a lot of time for Cook Space as a place to both learn new knife skills and decompress after long weeks. Spending an evening in its beautiful, airy Prospect Heights space preparing meals under the encouraging eye of the chef-teachers and getting to eat the spoils (minus the cleanup) is pretty high on our what-to-do-on-Thursday-nights list. The team is bringing their exceptional brand of culinary know-how to the North Fork this summer with a series of pop-ups that might include foraging along the bluffs, an immersive tutorial on cooking with liquors—brines, sauces, glazes—at the Lin Beach House, farm tours that end with feasts, and how-to-build-the-perfect-picnic workshops. Sign us up.

Carissa Waechter is a familiar face on this skinny stretch of Long Island. Her cookies, cakes, and pickled sourdough rye bread (the starter has been going since 1999) have been gracing the tables of year-round residents and New York blow-ins for years.

It’s a slight jaunt outside the Hamptons (about 20 miles), but this adorable, quaint fishing station and marina is worth a visit, particularly given it’s considered one of the last of its kind on the east coast. An adventurous couple bought the establishment–which has been serving the area since the 1930’s–last year and seriously upped the ante by bringing in a food truck and weekend farmer’s market and happy hour–all in addition to the fishing services and dory, boat, kayak, and paddle boards rentals.

The East Hampton outpost of Dylan Lauren's bright, graphic candy shop is a go-to for housewarming gifts, especially when you're hoping to get on the good side of your younger hosts. The Hamptons shop also has a summery assortment of pool and beach accessories, like candy-shaped pool floats, striped beach towels, frisbees, and adorable goggles decorated with plastic sprinkles. This summer, they're also selling DO, the customizable, safe-to-eat cookie dough you have to wait hours for in the city.

Lemonade and lobster rolls make for a pretty irresistible pairing so it's no surprise that Montauk local favorite Sweettauk recruited the folks at Red Hook Lobster Pound to join them out East. This tiny spot, marked by the light blue picnic tables out front specializes in lobster and shrimp rolls, but there's also a solid Caprese salad and clam chowder if you're feeling decadent. Also: hot dogs. There's plenty of Sweettauk lemonade—meyer lemon, blackberry dragonfruit, mango and strawberry mint— on tap, too.