The August Menu at Nourish: Late Summer on a Bridgehampton Plate
Nourish by The Roundtree Staff
There is a short stretch at the end of every summer when a Hamptons kitchen has almost nothing to prove and everything to work with. The farms a few miles north are at their peak, the light stays long, and the smart move for a cook is to get out of the way. That is the whole idea behind the August menu at Nourish.
What August Puts on the Plate
This is the two-week window when the East End does most of the work and the kitchen does the least. The tomatoes come in from the farms just north and need almost nothing, good oil, salt, and the discipline to stop. Corn is in its short window. The last of the stone fruit turns up next to things you would not expect it beside. None of it travels far, and none of it wants much done to it.
How Chef Dewa Cooks It
Chef Dewa Wijaya cooks the way he learned to in two places at once. He was born in Bali and trained classically in the French style, and he came to Bridgehampton from COMO Shambhala Estate in Bali and COMO Parrot Cay in Turks and Caicos, where the brief was food that leaves you able to do something afterward. Late summer is when that instinct and the produce agree completely. A plate that would carry a sauce in April carries almost nothing in August. That is not restraint for its own sake. It is what the ingredients are asking for.
The Turn Toward Fall
The menu is built to move. As the nights cool and the last of the summer produce comes off the farms, the cooking deepens with it, warmer and a little heavier, closer to the fire. You can taste the season changing on the plate before the calendar catches up. August is the pared-back peak of it, and a short one, which is the argument for coming while it lasts.
Reserving in August
Dinner runs through August, and the evening tables are the ones that fill first. Reservations go through Resy, or by phone or text at (631) 600-8852. Nourish sits on the Bridgehampton–Sag Harbor Turnpike, an easy drive from the beach and the farm stands both. Book ahead for the weekends, when the room is at its fullest and the kitchen is at its best.
