The Hamptons

As droves of Manhattan's bold-faced names overrun the Hampton's tiny seaside hamlets each summer, some restaurants become known more for banquette-dancing than quality cooking. Expect plenty of celebrity sightings at both this year's hotspot restaurants and perennial favorites such as Nick & Toni's. But alongside the trendy boîtes, low-key seafood shacks, and blue-blood haunts, many East End chefs are setting a different trend. As eating locally has become a national craze, restaurants here have highlighted their native bounty of farm and sea: springtime asparagus and rhubarb, locally raised Iacono Farm chicken, summer's cucumbers and tomatoes, and fall's plump squash, plus fresh-caught flounder, local littleneck clams, Montauk lobster, Blue Point oysters, and scallops from Peconic Bay. Wines from the South Fork's Wölffer Estate and Channing Daughters vineyards—along with even better quality varietals from the North Fork's vineyards—perfectly complement the homegrown cuisine.

Summer 2008 brings several notable restaurant openings to the Hamptons. In East Hampton, restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow opened Kobe Beach Club steak house, and Alison Becker Hurt's Alison at the Maidstone Arms serves a tavern menu and has an al fresco raw bar. The East End's restaurant kingpin, Ed "Jean-Luc" Kleefield, adds Grappa, a wine bar in Sag Harbor, to his restaurant collection; and chef Peter Dunlop (formerly of the American Hotel) is now working the kitchen at Oso, at the Southampton Inn. Near Montauk, the funky Surf Shack serves up lobster rolls, mini-hamburgers, 30 flavors of ice cream, and Nutella-laden waffles.