Since Lin Beach House (455 Route 25, Greenport) opened in 2018, its irreverent personality has been gently evolving. But with the recent installation of chef Meg Huylo as the Greenport spot’s new culinary director, sustenance is taking center stage.
Huylo, who has worked in the private sector as a personal and events chef, brings her brand of fresh, Mediterranean-influenced culinary creativity to Lin House, and so far it seems a perfect fit years in the making.
“I like to do a more creative project every few years – Lin House is inspiring and just wildly fun,” says Huylo.
Since opening, Lin House has functioned as an inn, a salon of sorts to showcase co-owner/distiller Leslie Merinoff’s sip-outside-the-box spirits and liqueurs she makes for her company Matchbox Distilling, and as the consistent site of chef Taylor Knapp’s locavore pop-up, PawPaw, who will continue to host his monthly dinners here.
At nearly a decade old, though, Merinoff is morphing the concept into something more bespoke and immersive.
“We’re moving away from operating as a traditional inn to create full-property private weekends designed as an immersion into the food, landscape, water, and agricultural culture of the North Fork,” Merinoff says, saying that the six-room inn will now only be reserved for full-house buyouts.
Think of it as the ultimate share house, just with the most covetable weekend activities folded into the experience: sea-to-table lunches, oyster harvests and other water excursions, cooking classes and fireside dinners, farm visits, a gin making camp, in-room spa treatments, and pretty much anything else Merinoff and Huylo can dream up.
“[Meg’s] work is deeply ingredient-driven — coastal, seasonal, nourishing and generous — shaped by time in Italy and Portugal, but grounded here in our farms, our waters, and our gardens,” Merinoff says.
The two women met while Huylo was doing a stint at Bhumi Farms in East Hampton. “Leslie came by to pick up some things and found out I was a chef, and we started working together. I gave her cooking lessons, she had me cater a few dinners for her family, and we wound up becoming friends,” Huylo recalls. When Merinoff opened Lin House, the chef started doing the occasional pop-up event there.
Fast forward eight years, and the opportunity finally presented itself for the two women to collaborate on a consistent, ongoing basis.
“I think this next chapter in the Lin existence is also just particularly appropriate for it. The space itself has so much potential, with all the different dining areas, building out the gardens in the back for al fresco dining,” says Huylo. “The grounds are really wonderful and offer so many opportunities for different experiences. It’s been really fun to see it evolve from an inn to hosting all these various different things to this next chapter.”
Her position officially began in November, but it was only last weekend that her collaborative cooking took center stage at Lin House’s most recent cocktail pop-up evening on Friday, Feb. 20. One of the most popular items she crafted: a part creamy, part fruity playful retro gelatin mold using Merinoff’s strawberry Amaro in the mix.
“The array of products that [Matchbook] has, and just the depth of flavor and the ingredients that Leslie uses; they’re just so interesting,” says the chef. “To be able to take those and use them in a culinary perspective is just so fun.”
Huylo will be deeply focused on creating culinary-centered weekend retreats, sourcing and selecting items offered in the Lin House’s general store on the ground floor of the inn and developing menus in conjunction with beverage director Joe Coleman to highlight and play with the flavors in Merinoff’s small-batch spirits, as well as creating surprise delights at Lin House pop-ups, the latter of which will still be open to the public.
Recently, she relocated her home base from the South Fork to Greenport, dividing her time between here and a few private clients in New York City, and that proximity to farms and fishing already feels like home.
“There’s a really strong, meaningful food community here that I’ve just always really been drawn to,” says Huylo. “When this [position at Lin House] came up, it just absolutely made sense.”
