Following much anticipation around what the acclaimed North Fork Table & Inn will look like after months of renovations, the restaurant finally opened its doors this summer.
Since buying the place in January, John Fraser and his hospitality group JF Restaurants, have revitalized the inside by opening up the dining room space. “The interior physical renovation was really more like a restoration,” Fraser said. “Really looking to highlight what the building had and open up the spaces.”
The new menu features some items cooked over the new wood-burning hearth. From Peconic scallops to the smoked hen of the woods mushrooms with celery root and celery branch and a caper vinaigrette to the grilled tuna with braised radish and jalapeno salad, the menu caters to many tastes while highlighting local products.
“I think the dish I am most proud of, I’m calling it the Southold Mixed Grill,” Fraser said. “It’s a little bit of a play on the old school way that people would go to chophouses, and you would get one of each kind of thing. But this is going to be the best of what’s around in these waters.” This dish, spotlighting five or six small portions of fish from the local water, was an instant classic that ended up on the cover of our September issue.
Fraser told us he’s excited to finally open, serve the North Fork community and get people back to work.
“We’ve been working on this for a really long time, and we finally get to bring it to market,” he said. “Some of it is emotional and some of it is just being excited by the idea of being able to serve an assortment of fish from less than 10 miles from here.”
