Spring 2021

S/S 2021

It’s good to be back and approaching some sense of normalcy. I am generally a very active person, and so being stuck in my house for more than a week was very hard for me. When the pandemic first hit, I knew it was going to last a long time. I had to find a hobby — and fast — so I started making bread. Seriously, I did!

I got a recipe from the New York Times, and my very first try was super successful, so I was immediately hooked. I ran across a website called The Perfect Loaf by Maurizio Leo, a software engineer turned baker who lives in New Mexico. He is unbelievable. I started to follow his website and make his recipes, and soon I was churning out loaves three times a day. It was intense and obsessive. I wish I could have kept it up, but taking care of a bread starter is like having a pet, and I no longer have the time to devote to it. It was definitely my pandemic project. Check out a recipe for a sourdough bread I made.

Believe it or not, there’s a lot going on at LT Hospitality. LT Bar & Grill is already six months old, and Caffeine Cafe recently opened in Westhampton and will be joined this summer by LT Burger at West, boasting a similar menu to my LT Burger Sag Harbor location. Stay tuned for more coming to Sag Harbor later this year. In NYC, we are putting the final touches on a new dining concept at the Eventi Hotel. Stay tuned for details! As always, you will read about our restaurants and the dishes we serve to give you an unforgettable dining experience.

As we welcome you back to our tables and summer takes form, let’s hope for sunnier days ahead in every possible sense.

Contents

OPENINGS
Caffeine Cafe to start your day

ON THE PLATE
Tomatoes take center stage

LT BAR & GRILL
What’s below and above

A WORLD OF WINE
Italy by the glass

Scusi Trattoria Pasta
The history behind the shapes

BEHIND THE BAR
Seasonal cocktails to quench your thirst

Openings

Caffeine Cafe

Gets You Off to a Good Start

Chef Laurent Tourondel is never short on great ideas for culinary concepts, and now he can add an honest-to-goodness café to his long list of brick-and-mortar eateries. Caffeine Cafe opened in Westhampton in May around a simple premise: great coffee and tasty morsels to accompany it in the form of a variety of pastries, mini sandwiches and açai bowls.

Designed by Lula Galeano, a principal at Studio Galeon, Caffeine Cafe boasts a neutral white and light color scheme to keep it monotonal and light for the beach. Simple design features include antique off-white tile, cream tables, light oak beams, white linens and plaster walls. It feels warm and inviting with bench seating, a counter and rattan accessories.

Chef Tourondel adds a personal stamp to each of his properties, and this is no exception. A gallery wall features his curated selection of paintings related to the sea and flowers as well as portraits. Galeano says they are a mix of vintage and new — some she discovered while thrifting around New York City, others he discovered online.

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Recipes

Recipe
Roundtable

Nothing says summer quite like a tomato. It is a self-contained meal bursting with sunshine. It tastes simply delicious in its natural state or enhanced with a dusting of sea salt. It’s a fabulous sidekick to myriad dishes and holds its own due to a strong, acidic backbone. It’s good for you, thanks to the antioxidant lycopene, and is a valuable source of vitamin C, potassium, folate and vitamin K.

Memories of Chef Tourondel’s childhood in France are stuffed with those containing tomatoes. “Where I lived, we had a gigantic garden with a sizable tomato patch. During tomato season, we ate them every day for lunch and dinner and never got tired of them,” explains the chef. “We did not use balsamic vinegar, because I am not from the South of France. Instead, we would make a salad with red wine vinegar, onion, olive oil and salt and pepper. We would crumble a hard-boiled egg on top. Another popular preparation was a slice of tomato in a pan with a bit of garlic, salt and pepper with an egg broken on top and cooked over-easy — homestyle!”

Here are recipes that make good use of this summer fruit (yes, it’s a fruit!) to help you create tomato memories of your own.

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LT Bar & Grill

Raising the Steaks

LT Bar & Grill and LT Above

Chef Laurent Tourondel’s first foray into New Jersey is a memorable one on all fronts. First and foremost, there’s the food, a winning combination of steakhouse staples re-envisioned thoughtfully for today’s diner, fresh seafood dishes, lighter fare and an innovative sushi menu. And then there’s the design, which completely deconstructs the typical steak restaurant concept from the outside in. Thanks to the team at Crème Architecture & Design, led by principal and founder Jun Aizaki, LT Bar & Grill and event space LT Above was realized through a seamless collaboration with Chef Laurent Tourondel.

E
ating out is an experience, and as important as the food is, it’s not complete without the right service and atmosphere. But even before you walk through the front door, you have expectations about the meal ahead, certainly derived from previewing a menu but also from seeing the building. In the case of LT Bar & Grill, Aizaki acknowledged the amazing opportunity to do something special with the facade of the restaurant that can be seen from far away, even from a nearby highway. In fact, the building became the signage.

Aizaki and Chef Tourondel settled on copper for the top half of the building. “Copper emits a feeling of warmth,” explains Aizaki. “It reminds us of cookware. It relates to the interior of the restaurant, and we wanted that to transpire on the outside. Plus, we wanted the actual color to shine, which you can’t get from a coat of paint.”

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Travel

Destination: Badge

Italian Wine Country

LTH Beverage Director Percy Rodriguez headed to Italy before the pandemic to visit Piedmont, Trentino-Alto Adige and Tuscany. As we all itch to travel again, here are takeaways from his trip that helped inform the wine lists at Scusi Trattoria and L’Amico.

Destination: Badge

Italian Wine Country

LTH Beverage Director Percy Rodriguez headed to Italy before the pandemic to visit Piedmont, Trentino-Alto Adige and Tuscany. As we all itch to travel again, here are takeaways from his trip that helped inform the wine lists at Scusi Trattoria and L’Amico.

scusi pasta

Dreaming of an Italian vacation on the water? The Amalfi Coast is lined with postcard-pretty towns, Positano among the best known. Almost smack dab in the middle of this stretch of stunning coastline is Minori, famous for its underground ruins at the Villa Romana and handmade pasta.

During Italy’s Bourbon Era (1734–1861), Minori was the center of handmade pasta production for the Kingdom of Naples and the foundation for the economy of the Amalfi Coast. Many mills and factories were built along the Reghinna Minor River that flows through this creviced valley. Ribbons of pasta were hung to dry on washing lines in sunny piazzas. It wasn’t until the 18th century that the modern pasta industry was moved to Gragnano.

The pasta shapes formed in that tiny town dot the plates at Scusi Trattoria, perfectly crafted creations often made entirely from flour and water. Because a dish always tastes that much better with a story behind it, here’s a few to whet your appetite and earn you history cred in the process. After all, Italian DNA is shaped by pasta!

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Learn More

EYE OF THE CHEF

A Photo Finish

The Chef Behind the Lens

It’s not unusual for highly creative people to have an affinity for another artistic field — many chefs draw or paint, while others play music. When it comes to Chef Laurent Tourondel, you can often find him with a camera in hand, even if only his iPhone. His photographs are an extension of his creativity on a plate. But it could also be something more random that prompts him to focus and click.

ourondel lived his formative years in a charming medieval town in France. “There were old buildings and churches around every corner,” he says. “You never get tired of the scenery, of the history on display. Everything was special.”

While it didn’t inspire him to take photographs, his surroundings might have influenced the way he looks at things today, drawing out small details on a plate, looking for something unusual in juxtaposition. When you grow up around a lot of beauty in ordinary things, it makes sense to continue pulling out the extraordinary in everything you see.

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Cocktails

Sgroppino

1 oz Tito’s Vodka
0.5 oz Strega Liqueur
0.5 oz Italicus Rosolio Bergamot Liqueur
0.5 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz lime juice
1 oz simple syrup
0.5 oz heavy cream

Shake.
Top with 1 oz Prosecco.
Pour over ice into a wine glass.
Garnish with lime zest.

Un Po Fumosa

1.5 oz Cazadores Tequila
0.5 oz Del Maguey Mezcal
0.75 oz lime juice
0.5 oz organic agave

Three hard shakes, strain and pour over ice in a rocks glass.
Fennel/citrus/salt rim.

A Shim from Chianti

1.5 oz Istine Vermouth
1.5 oz Oscar Extra-Dry Vermouth
3 dash Peychaud’s Bitters
3 dash orange Bitters
1 dash Angostura Bitters

Build in rocks glass.
Garnish with a lemon peel.

Take it Slow

1.5 oz Standard Wormwood Rye
0.75 oz Cocchi Americano
0.25 oz Cappelletti Amaro Sfumato
2 dash Peychaud’s Bitters
2 dash Angostura Bitters

Build in stirring glass.
Stir until chilled with ice.
Strain into a coupe.
Garnish with a cherry.

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Sgroppino

1 oz Tito’s Vodka
0.5 oz Strega Liqueur
0.5 oz Italicus Rosolio Bergamot Liqueur
0.5 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz lime juice
1 oz simple syrup
0.5 oz heavy cream

Shake.
Top with 1 oz Prosecco.
Pour over ice into a wine glass.
Garnish with lime zest.

Un Po Fumosa

1.5 oz Cazadores Tequila
0.5 oz Del Maguey Mezcal
0.75 oz lime juice
0.5 oz organic agave

Three hard shakes, strain and pour over ice in a rocks glass.
Fennel/citrus/salt rim.

A Shim from Chianti

1.5 oz Istine Vermouth
1.5 oz Oscar Extra-Dry Vermouth
3 dash Peychaud’s Bitters
3 dash orange Bitters
1 dash Angostura Bitters

Build in rocks glass.
Garnish with a lemon peel.

Take it Slow

1.5 oz Standard Wormwood Rye
0.75 oz Cocchi Americano
0.25 oz Cappelletti Amaro Sfumato
2 dash Peychaud’s Bitters
2 dash Angostura Bitters

Build in stirring glass.
Stir until chilled with ice.
Strain into a coupe.
Garnish with a cherry.

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Recipes

Sourdough Bread

starter
20 g starter
200 g room-temperature water, divided
200 g white flour, divided

1. Feed your starter (refreshing). In the morning, three days before you plan to serve your bread (Friday morning, for example, for loaves on Sunday), pull your starter from the refrigerator and decant 20 grams of it into a clean, clear container. Return any remaining starter to the refrigerator for future use. Stir in 100 grams of room-temperature tap water until the starter is evenly dispersed, then stir in 100 grams of white flour until you have a smooth paste.

2. Cover the container and let sit at room temperature until it has at least doubled in volume and its surface teems with sudsy bubbles, 10 to 12 hours, depending on your kitchen’s temperature.

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Publisher
Michael Goldman

Editor-in-Chief
Pamela Jouan

Design Director
Seton Rossini

Managing Editor
Christian Kappner

Assistant Editor
Stephane Henrion

Senior Copy Editor
kelly suzan waggoner

Contributing Writer
Pamela Jouan

Photography
p5: (Latte) Joshua Hill
p8: (Top left) J. Remy,
(Top & middle right,
bottom left) Ines Leong

p9: Quentin Bacon

All other photography courtesy of
LT Hospitality

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