Long Island Restaurants

Jamesport Manor Inn

Rebuilt and renewed, the Jamesport Manor Inn opens as this season's hot table on the North Fork.

Owner Matthew Kar, who also runs the popular, casual Jamesport Country Kitchen, has overseen a meticulous restoration, up from the ashes after a fire. The Inn never looked so good.

The new building succeeds one that for decades was a mix of Gothic Revival, Second Empire and Charles Addams. In this life, the inn no longer leaves the impression of a year-round Halloween set, haunted by agita-driven spirits.

Now, it's an invitation to summer, framed with handsome woodwork, painstaking painting and a sense of local style. It's all refreshing and inviting, especially in the dining room.

Chef Eric Rickmers fashions a seasonal menu, mainly new American, with a few Mediterranean accents and Asian side trips. Try the fine fluke ceviche paired with a bright sorrel salad. Or the combo of roasted beets, mesclun and spiced pecans, capped with a cut of triple-cream Saint Andre cheese.

Rickmers prepares a hearty plate of garganelli pasta in a richly flavored oxtail ragu; and his crab cake arrives meaty and tasty. Salmon roll tempura, with seaweed salad and caramelized leeks, may look pretty, but it's on the dry side.

Mellow, creamy wild mushroom risotto stands out. Likewise, a main course of splashingly fresh, herb-basted striped bass atop parsnip puree and spinach. Roseate, seared tuna with black rice, also is easy to recommend.

Tender, sliced flatiron steak finished with red wine sauce and accompanied by fingerling potatoes; and juicy Crescent Farms duck breast with delicately seasoned savoy cabbage, rank high, too.

In these early weeks, service can be a little high-strung. But, eventually, things get more relaxed.

So, you can relish the crackling vanilla creme brulee, warm chocolate cake, plum tart with blood orange sorbet, and "drunken cherry and pistachio" bread pudding.

Above all, you'll enjoy what has happened to the Jamesport Manor Inn.

Reviewed by Peter M. Gianotti, 6/8/07.

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