Modern And Sleek

These Dining Rooms are Showstoppers

Embrace the modern dining world this spring with the sleekest and slickest establishments Out East. From steak to Tapas, the Hamptons is offering up dining experiences that are sure to whet your palate, all served in spaces that are cool, chic, and sophisticated. Our favorite restaurants span from Hampton Bays all the way to East Hampton, in dining rooms of all shapes and sizes. This spring, expand your dining roster and check out some of our hand-picked favorites. Here are some of the best modern dining rooms on the East End this season. 

Once known for their plentiful breakfasts, the Hampton Maid has recently been reinvented as a destination restaurant. At R.AIRE at the Hampton Maid, Spanish-born chef Alex Bujoreanu now showcases the diverse food of Spain through a Tapas menu (a prix fixe menu is also available Tuesdays through Thursdays for $45, and includes an appetizer, entrée, and dessert). The sleek, clean dining room, with its ceramic tiled bar and modern sensibility, has revitalized a Hampton Bays stalwart. Come for the décor and stay, of course, for the seafood paella for two; it’s made with homemade stock, sofrito, bomba rice, calamari, mussels, shrimp, and clams. 

Sag Harbor’s Sen is no restaurant newcomer, but the decades-old Japanese restaurant has undergone a series of major renovations in the past couple of years, making it one of the most up-to-date spaces on the East End. Blond wood, backlit accents, and a private and sleek bar space for those in-the-know to convene makes Sen one of the most modern and convivial dining spaces around town. It doesn’t hurt that the food is consistently show-stopping (the pork belly ramen has been a Hamptons favorite for years, and diners travel from all over the East End for the restaurant’s fresh sushi). 

In East Hampton, modern takes a cozy twist at Cove Hollow Tavern, the sibling restaurant to Shelter Island’s Vine Street Café. Unassuming from the exterior, this petite restaurant is streamlined inside, with shiplap walls, sconces, and a modest art collection. The menu is full of delicious things that guests come back to eat again and again, like shrimp cocktail, French onion soup, a Moroccan lamb burger, Montauk swordfish with a lemon beurre blanc, St. Louis-style ribs with a cider barbecue sauce, and a grilled heritage pork chop over polenta. 

The dark and moody interior of the East Hampton Grill is the ideal place to sneak away for a steak and a martini on a rainy spring afternoon. Always in fashion, this modern steakhouse is the place to see and be seen in the Hamptons. The so-called heavenly biscuits, served with rosemary butter and local honey, are a necessary start to any evening, as is the spinach and artichoke dip (it comes with salsa, sour cream, and tortilla chips). And the shrimp cocktail is an East End classic, with both cocktail and remoulade sauces. For dinner, don’t skip the bone-in rib-eye, served with Worcestershire and blue cheese tomatoes. On the side: creamed corn, pommes purée, and a kale panzanella, for a bit of green, of course.