Estia's American Restaurant Just Celebrated Its
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OK magazine says: Vacation Like a Star, Brunch at Estia's Little Kitchen
LEADING CHEFS AROUND THE COUNTRY AGREE:
Chef Colin Ambrose of Estia's Little Kitchen named to BEST CHEFS AMERICA
Sag Harbor, NY, 03/01/2013 – Chef Colin Ambrose, of Estia's, has been honored as one of the country’s top culinary talents in the inaugural edition of Best Chefs America. This is the first-ever peer review guide of U.S. chefs, who were chosen after extensive interviews between their fellow chefs and Best Chefs America analysts. Chef Colin Ambrose has been showcased in the informative and exquisitely produced 386-page coffee table book that was released on March 1, 2013.
Tom Colicchio interviewed by Hamptons Magazine
: When you are in the Hamptons, where do you like to eat?
Tom Colicchio: I love having breakfast on the weekends at Estia’s Little Kitchen. They have it down. When you walk in there to have breakfast, you really feel like you are in the country. Even though this is supposed to be the country, part of the Hamptons can feel more urban, but Estia’s really nails it.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Award Presented to: Estia Little Kitchen
New 2012 Star Rating: 5
Estia Little Kitchen Scores Another Victory with
the 2012 Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award!
We would like to extend our congratulations to you and your staff for reaching another milestone in overall customer satisfaction. As you recall, in 2011 your business received the Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award, and through hard work and commitment, the Estia Little Kitchen team has achieved a consecutive win with 5 stars for 2012!
Visit the Talk of the Town for more info
Estia's American breakfast is featured in
August 17, 2012
By PATRICIA BROOKS
Connecticut Dining | Breakfast
When Bacon Beckons Far From Home
Estia’s American is new to Darien and is the chef-owner Colin Ambrose’s first venture in Connecticut; he prides himself on serving local and natural foods. The small space, which seats 38, looks a little bland inside, with Formica tabletops and a few Americana artifacts. Outside, on the brick-lined patio that seats 18, big umbrellas shield tables from the morning sun.
The menu is unusual. It offers generous portions, some with a Mexican touch: Nacho Mamma’s (jalapeño, chorizo, potatoes, Jack cheese, peppers, onions and corn tortillas, for $12.50), Robbie’s Gringo Hash (red beans, rice, two eggs and corn tortillas, $14.50) and Happy Jack’s breakfast burritos (toasted flour tortillas with two scrambled eggs, andouille sausage, corn, peppers and onions, $13.50).
Not all is south-of-the-border here; customers can choose from eight customized omelets, accompanied by toast and home fries, a Cajun omelet (with andouille, tomato, onion and peppers, $13.50); or Whittie’s Delight (oatmeal with apples, two poached eggs and a sausage patty, $12.50). Three thick, double-size blueberry buttermilk pancakes had lots of fresh berries and came with a creamer brimming with Vermont maple syrup (also available with bananas, apples or chocolate chips, $8.50 to $11.50).
Andrew Sullivan for The New York Times
UNCOMMON FARE
The menu at Estia's American restaurant, new to Darien, is unusual.
Estia's American
The Daily Darien
New Darien Eatery Embraces Local and Original Menu
April 10 2012
by Casey Donahue
Estia's Restaurant Crosses the Sound: Opening in Darien, Connecticut
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In April the second incarnation of Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor will be expanding into Darien, CT in the form of Estia’s American, a charming Café that will offer Owner Colin Ambrose’s signature healthy, vibrant, freshly prepared foods. The Café will serve breakfast, lunch and a juice bar, then transform itself into an urbane restaurant and bar for dinner service. Estia’s from-scratch approach, and local sourcing whenever possible, will remain at the forefront, paying homage to where it all began. Estia’s has always had heart, and that will be felt in this new modern, old-style neighborhood restaurant and gathering place. |
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For the Love of Food Intersession -
A Video Clip produced by a group of students from Millbrook showing a few of Estia's Little Kitchen purveyors.
CTbites.com - Your guide to great food in Fairfield County
Beloved Hamptons Sustainable Chef brings Estia’s to Darien
March 28, 2012
27east.com - Review Posted for Estia's Little Kitchen
IrishAurora posted a review for Estia's Little Kitchen on Jan 24, 12 10:31 AM 5 Stars.
"Went here this Sunday for brunch (a little after 1) and was delighted to find that breakfast was still available! Both me and my dining buddy were thrilled with our meals (we both ordered what I think was called the Grand Ranch?) Delicous! The service was super friendly and quick! My only complaint was they were super busy and we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table but we expected this as former reviewers had mentioned how little the place is and busy. I say, good for them! I don't mind waiting when the dining experience is this good."
EAST HAMPTON PATCH - Not All Fresh Foods Come To An End
September 22, 2011
Estia's Little Kitchen earned Dan's Papers Best of The Best Gold rating!
Sag Harbor Express | Harvest Issue
A Celebration of Late Summer
August 2011 - On the Tongue, Herbs for a late Summer Palate
A Fresh & Minimal Approach To Food:
Estia's Little Kitchen on Plum TV
Sag Harbor Express
A Little Kitchen's Garden Celebrates Food & Family
Posted on 29 July 2011
On most summer days at Estia’s Little Kitchen on the fringe of Sag Harbor Village,
families meander outside under apple, pear and peach trees while waiting for a table at
the celebrated café. Children wait hungrily for fresh fruit pancakes while they poke at
bright yellow zucchini blossoms, finger cherry-red stalks of Swiss chard and smell mint
nestled among a kaleidoscope of native flowers.
For chef and owner Colin Ambrose, the image evokes memories of his own children’s
earliest interactions with food, beginning at his first farm on Lorne Michael’s Amagansett
property where he created a chefs co-op for local produce. The fruits of that venture
made his first restaurant, Estia’s Coffee Shop, the kind of place where locals and visitors
alike wouldn’t bat an eyelash at waiting in line down Main Street, Amagansett for a
sample of blueberry pancakes or the signature two-hour salad, a seasonal selection of
produce plucked warm from the ground just hours before it was artfully presented on a
diner’s plate.
That coffee shop’s lease was sold years ago as Ambrose began to focus his culinary
energies on Estia’s Little Kitchen after buying the once sleepy Tony’s Coffee Shop in
1998.
Ambrose ceased farming at Michaels’ property in part because of geography but also
because of a hungry deer population. However, The Little Kitchen, as it is known to
scores of regulars, has retained the devout loyalty of Ambrose’s clientele, and this year,
Ambrose has returned to his roots, building a kitchen garden on one-third of an acre
behind his restaurant. The garden teems with fruits and vegetables that make their way
onto plates at the Little Kitchen, supplemented when needed by the produce of local
farmers like Bette Lacina and Dale Haubrich, Marilee Foster, David Falkowski, Alex
Balsam, Ian Calder-Piedmonte and longtime friend and mentor Scott Chaskey of Quail
Hill Farm in Amagansett.
“I buy from who I can, who I trust and what works for us,” said Ambrose on Monday
morning, sitting at a table outside of his restaurant. “I bought Milk Pail peaches for our
blueberry peach pancakes while I wait for my peaches to ripen. I just bought a bunch of
carrots and potatoes from Bette and Dale for South Fork succotash.”
The Little Kitchen has long supported local farmers, and while Ambrose remains
committed to the South Fork farms, he added he is pleased he is now able to bring more
of his own food into the Little Kitchen.
The kitchen garden was designed by Susan Meyer and Ambrose, and was established
this past fall making this spring and summer The Little Kitchen Garden’s first harvest.
The garden is tended to by Ambrose, but also by Jeff Negron who on many days can be
seen from the Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton Turnpike pruning the Little Kitchen’s
decade-old blueberry bushes or inspecting heads of delicate lettuce nestled under the
natural shade of a birch tree.
True to Ambrose’s lifelong culinary commitment to chemical-free, seasonal local produce
– something the restaurateur has embraced long before the practice became trendy –
the kitchen garden is fertilized by Ambrose’s own compost, turned in three concrete
compost bins at the edge of the restaurant property. Bits of eggshell can be seen poking
up from soil in the rows of basil.
Ambrose’s career began in 1991 when he bought Estia’s in Amagansett, creating a
restaurant focused on local produce, fish with a Mexican influence finding its way into
menu items. After befriending Chaskey and becoming enamored with the idea of farming
his own crops, Ambrose reached out to regular customer and artist John Alexander and
asked him if he knew of any fallow land he could use.
Enter Lorne Michaels. The Saturday Night Live creator allowed Ambrose to create a
two-acre garden on his property. A pasture for 50 years, Ambrose nearly drools when
describing the “enhanced Bridgehampton loam” that his vegetables took root in. A
regular customer, Rhett, agreed to clear the acreage for coffee and eggs at Estia for five
months and Ambrose’s first garden was born.
His partners in what would become known as The Basil Brothers Chefs Co-op included
famed chefs Charlie Palmer and Rick Moonen, along with local chefs Dennis MacNeil,
Gerry Hayden and the late Kevin Henry.
“They were all so influential in the easy days of East Hampton’s culinary development,”
said Ambrose of the latter three.
For two years, the chef’s co-op flourished, and while Ambrose still considers many of
those men his brothers, the co-op eventually dwindled and after buying The Little
Kitchen in 1998, Ambrose eventually stopped gardening on the property.
Ambrose continued to be a member of Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, his daughters
Lyman and Mansell and wife Jessica joining him, as they did on the Michaels property, to
collect vegetables for the family dinner table.
Now with the garden in place, Ambrose said he is not only thrilled to see the property
take on a whole new aura, animals finding their way onto the property that never have
before, and families finding their children drawn to the garden, just as his own children
were when they were young.
“This is beyond a place to eat,” said Ambrose, slightly tearing. “Children wander through
the garden and I tell their parents to let them pick a green bean. That is getting me to the
next level.”
Lyman and Mansell, who formed their own company – A. Sisters Food Company — two
years ago, selling “lymanade” of various flavors, fresh pasta and pesto, have taken on
the family tradition of celebrating fresh, local food.
“We were so connected to the garden,” said Lyman on Tuesday. “It was fun to just be
there with my dad, but it also really opened our eyes up about what is right to eat.
Friends would tell me I was a picky eater, but that was because I grew up eating the
best. That sad salad they served to me at boarding school was not something I was
going to touch.”
Lyman, who is studying business and nutritional sciences at Bucknell this fall said she
was always proud of her father, but once she and Mansell started their business and
began selling their goods at local farm stands they witnessed first hand the kind of
relationships he has built with people over the last two decades.
“It has been great to see the reaction everyone has to him,” said Lyman. “To see that
side of it and how much people love that restaurant, it’s mind blowing that one man can
produce that kind of following.”
Ambrose would likely blush at those comments.
“It’s not my goal to be anything more than I am today,” he said, wrapping up the
interview. “I am that guy who will spend the next three hours getting this garden ready
for the weekend. My job is to be a good father and just do what we do here.”
hamptons.com Article about Estia's : Small Space - Huge Flavor
Dan's Paper Restaurant Review - June 16th, 2011
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To celebrate our 13th year in service we will provide a free glass of Wolffer Cuvee Sparkling Brut to all dinner guests on the weekend starting Thursday March 17th.
