Long Island Restaurants

Jedediah Hawkins Inn

Autumn is the North Fork's season, and Jedediah's is your destination.

Handsomely restored, the grand 1863 building now hosts one of Long Island's most inviting restaurants.

The Italianate structure was falling apart and pretty much ready for the bulldozer when the two-year project began. The reborn inn, complete with belvedere, centers on the 40-seat restaurant, which, weather permitting, adds 30 more on the terrace.

The seasonal menu is mainly harvested from the North Fork, from a smoky corn-and-fennel soup to tempura-style squash blossoms filled with Catapano Farms goat cheese.

The local cheese highlights a salad of golden and red beets, fingerling potatoes and green beans, too. And the artful, heirloom tomato salad, with four varieties, plus watermelon for contrast, rivals it. The Caesar salad is more mild than aggressive.

These openers are complemented by tuna "three ways," which are a staple of former chef Tom Schaudel, with four small plates in one: tartare, crudo, sesame-seared, and another for a shot of sake. The respectable "shrimp medley" takes a similar approach, with a taste of shrimp cocktail, remoulade, cured and Creole-seasoned.

Almost as good is the smoked fish tasting, featuring tasty rainbow trout, Scottish salmon and mackerel, but overdone scallops. Blue crab salad gets stuck in tropical fruit "soup," avocado and more: overorchestrated.

Carpaccio of lamb, here seared and paired with roasted red-pepper relish, fans out far enough to be a mini-entree. But duck prosciutto arrives cut thickly, and a bit leathery.

Butter-poached lobster, silky and seductive, turns even richer with chanterelles. Pan-roasted halibut, perched on puree of butternut squash studded with apple hash, deftly evokes fall. Pan-seared swordfish, in a tomato-fennel broth with mussels, brings in a Mediterranean accent.

You should veer Italian and enjoy the light ricotta gnocchi finished with a vibrant, spicy veal sausage sauce. Jedediah's sometimes prepares the gnocchi with local vegetables and basil broth; or with tomatoes, basil, garlic and prosciutto, too.

Jurgielewicz Farm duck stars in a two-way show of rosy, seared breast and confit of leg that threads through a hill of nutty farro. "Deconstructed beef 'in the style of Burgundy'" plays with the definitions. But it's a tender, wine-glazed filet mignon, with small plates devoted to the vegetables.

The best desserts are blueberry brioche bread pudding, a solid flourless chocolate cake, and, of course, the local blackberry shortcake and the Catapano Farms goat cheese-ginger tart.

Reserve early.

Reviewed by Peter M. Gianotti, 10/8/06.

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