Delicious Drive Destinations

La Maison Blanche, Shelter Island
This breezy boutique hotel in a big old white house with a wraparound porch, revamped last year by a former Andre Balazs partner, has eight luxurious but homey rooms (plus lovely gardens, a great bar, and two courts for playing boules on the front lawn with your pre-dinner drink). The French brasserie and bakery draws a chic nighttime crowd from all over the East End. The menu isn’t reinventing anything—escargots, moules marinieres, duck confit, steak frites—but all of the produce is incredibly fresh and local, the dishes are executed perfectly, and many of the featured wines come from nearby North Fork vineyards. The morning baked goods, to be taken on the porch with a strong coffee, top off the experience.
La Maison Blanche: 11 Stearns Point Road, Shelter Island Heights, New York, 631.749.1633

Delamar Greenwich Harbor, Greenwich
The Delamar is the opposite of the subtle-chic Maison Blanche. Its luxuriousness is utterly evident from the exterior, where most of the 82 rooms and suites have balconies facing Greenwich Harbor, which is chock-full of sailboats, schooners, speedboats, and some seriously impressive yachts. The waterfront restaurant, L’escale, has a dock to which guests can sail right up for a bite of the Provençal cuisine. Naturally, the favorite dishes involve seafood, like the whole grilled dorado or the authentic bouillabaisse, which brims with John Dory, monkfish, jumbo prawns, mussels, and clams. The restaurant also has an extensive raw bar with several caviar options. Vive la Connecticut!
Delamar Greenwich Harbor: 500 Steamboat Road, Greenwich, Connecticut, 203.987.3573

Jedediah Hawkins Inn, Jamesport
This Victorian-style inn in the heart of Long Island’s North Fork is as deluxe as you could imagine a Victorian-style inn to be. Each of the six modern and chic rooms is unique and has a fireplace, Frette linens, and a luxuriously appointed bathroom. Jedediah Hawkins is best known for its cuisine, however. Luce & Hawkins is the more formal of two restaurants, a New American dining experience in a very cozy room. Luce’s Landing is a more casual country café and wine bar, where guests sit at a community farm table. The menus change daily, depending on what’s at its peak in the inn’s gardens, so you may find yourself coming back again and again. Ask around and you’ll find that everyone else is a repeat visitor too.
Jedediah Hawkins Inn: 400 South Jamesport Avenue, Jamesport, New York, 631.722.2900

Hotel Fauchere, Milford
This adorable and historic hotel is an unexpected delight in an even more adorable Delaware River town on the Pennsylvania border. The 16 guestrooms are thoroughly modern, with all the amenities you’d expect from the finest hotels, yet still retain original touches like hardwood floors. There are two dining options here. The upscale Delmonico Room serves elaborate multicourse chef’s menus featuring delicate New American dishes that are heavy on ultrafresh produce, and Bar Louis is a European bistro offering small plates of whole roasted foie gras and entrees like softshell crabs with fiddleheads and crispy veal sweetbreads. Both restaurants are equally popular, and many guests come just to sit at the bar for wine and snacks alone.
Hotel Fauchere: 401 Broad Street, Milford, Pennsylvania, 570.409.1212

Sunset Beach, Shelter Island
This laid-back beachside hotel from Andre Balazs has 20 charming minimalist-chic rooms, each with a private sun deck and views of the water. People from all over the Hamptons arrive on boats and wade in to eat at the lively restaurant, which sits right across from the beach and has a distinctly Euro-chic-meets-beach-culture vibe, like something you’d find on the French Riviera. Seafood-oriented appetizers including lobster spring rolls, tuna carpaccio, and calamari salad make refreshing openings to classic French-country entrees such as roast chicken and filet mignon au poivre. Lunches are casual and include a croque monsieur, burgers, and chilled lobster with mayonnaise.
Sunset Beach: 35 Shore Road, Shelter Island, New York, 631.749.2001

The Crow’s Nest, Montauk
Just 1.5 miles from the eastern tip of Long Island, this 18-room boutique hotel actually sits on Lake Montauk and is run by hip NYC hotelier Sean Macpherson (co-owner of the Jane, Maritime, and Bowery Hotels in the city). The rooms have decks, and there’s an awesome lawn area that runs down to the marshes and the bay. Many people come for the bar or the food alone. The New American seasonal menu has plenty of seafood, including striped bass, fluke, scallops, and littleneck clams, but there are also pastas and vegetarian options. Expect a crowd of downtown fashion types out surfing for the weekend at Ditch Plains, then retiring here for muddled fruit and vodka cocktails.
The Crow’s Nest: 4 Old West Lake Drive, Montauk, New York, 631.668.2077

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