Review: El Verano in Southampton
Lobster tacos with togarashi mayo at El Verano in Southampton. Credit: Newsday/Marie Elena Martinez
The Hamptons dining scene got more interesting when Mexico City-born chef Julian Medina — known for New York City spots Toloache, Coppelia and Tacuba — began serving an elevated take on coastal Mexican cuisine in a prime corner location in Southampton.
The chic dining room, inspired by the whimsical summer houses of Mexico City’s elite, is peppered with sea foam green velvet banquettes, multicolored, traditional Otomi textile wallpaper and wicker overhead lighting. Tastefully accented with Chilewich place mats, the large, adjacent barroom offers an ideal meeting place for bespoke agave cocktails made from over 100 featured tequilas and mezcals.
Although it means "summer" in Spanish, El Verano is open year-round, serving lunch, brunch, and dinner; great news for East End diners as Medina is as adept at making street tacos as he is at grilled fish, not to mention the robust salsas that complement them.
There's succulent rib-eye tacos ($35) in a molcajeteada sauce, made from ground tomato, garlic, and chilies crushed in a molcajete, or mortar and pestle, and fried Baja fish tacos ($28) made with local fluke, but the standout is meaty lobster tacos ($38) tossed with spicy togarashi mayo, avocado and a crunchy, slick peanut salsa macha on a paper-thin corn tortilla. Quesadillas are laced with huitlacoche, or corn fungus, another winner. A raw bar serves shellfish towers and tuna ceviche.
Duck carnitas and the huitlacoche (corn) quesadilla at El Verano in Southampton.
Exceptional dinner entrees include a whole sea bass "sarandeado," grilled and butterflied, served with salsa verde for sharing ($58) and jumbo shrimp in a watermelon chipotle BBQ sauce ($45). But the long-simmering Long Island duck carnitas ($52), cooked low and slow in a tamarind chocolate habanero glaze and served with oversized butter lettuce leaves as wrappers, will color your dreams. For dessert, the churros sundae ($20), with caramelized banana and dulce de leche ice cream, is the only way to finish.
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A global freelancer who has checked her suitcase to raise her young daughter on her native Long Island, Marie Elena will always make time for good mezcal, even better tacos and killer conversation. Preferably, in a corner bar seat. She can be found on Instagram at @mariesworldeats.
