Review: Stone Creek Inn in East Quogue

In France, it’s common for gastronomes to spend a day driving for the express purpose of having a spectacular meal at a country inn. Long Islanders who want to engage in this Gallic idyll need only set their GPS to East Quogue where, since 1996, the Stone Creek Inn has stood ready to oblige.

Chef-owner Christian Mir began his career in his native France then emigrated to the U.S. where he met his wife and partner, Elaine Digiacomo, when both of them were working at Manhattan’s Tavern on the Green. When the married couple decided to do something on their own, they purchased the historic Ambassador Inn in East Quogue and turned it into one of Long Island’s most dependable fine-dining restaurants. With its hushed, elegant dining rooms and unfailingly gracious service — from valet to host to bartender to server — it can only be described as grand.

At most restaurants this big (160 seats), the food can take on a slick, corporate air, but Mir’s personality is evident in every dish. The foundation of his cuisine is French, but there are New American, Italian and Asian elements as well.

Like any good French chef, Mir changes his menu according to the season, but you’ll usually find "the egg," a neatly sawed-off eggshell filled with a delicate egg custard and crowned with caviar, and duck meatballs squatting in puddles of butter-rich mashed poatoes. Classics such as vichyssoise, escargot in parslied garlic butter, pâté de campagne (a big slab served with red onion preserves), herb-crusted rack of lamb and soul-warming coq au vin are beautifully rendered. Bouillabaisse, dominated by fat mussels, is served in a copper pot with good, crusty bread to sop up every last drop. A bruiser of an Iberico pork chop is served atop crushed-then-seared potatoes with a verdant chimichurri to cut the richness. Summer might bring a grilled fillet of striped bass with summer corn, grilled tomatoes and zucchini succotash. Finish warm beignets or an old-school baba au rhum.

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