Chelsea Living Room has opened a summer pop-up in the Hamptons. The soigné Manhattan supper club’s East End outpost is within Gurney’s Montauk Resort & Seawater Spa, a luxury resort framed by the open Atlantic. The menu features Chelsea Living Room favorites like Crispy Cheese & Caviar and Kobe Beef Pigs in a Blanket alongside a few beach-gourmet goodies like Lobster & Caviar Toast.
When news of this pop-up crossed my desk, my ears perked up—and not just at the notion of Champagne service on a veranda overlooking the Atlantic. As a man who considers The Great Gatsby the best American novel of the twentieth century, I have a longstanding fascination with the Hamptons. Somehow, despite making my living as a travel writer in New York City, I have yet to visit.
The Hamptons, Hotel Chelsea, and American Mythology
I salute Chelsea Living Room for its unapologetically over-the-top fare. I recently returned from Los Angeles, where restaurants serve what amounts to expensive rabbit food. Chelsea Living Room is a rebuke to that ethos. Think rocket-fuel martinis, heaps of caviar, fried cheese. Don’t bring a shrinking violet adhering to the latest wellness fad or cleanse. Instead, invite a hot date with a well-documented hedonistic streak.
It’s rather shameful that I’ve never been to the Hamptons. Travel journalism takes me to Japan nearly every year, South America often, and Europe more times than most Upper East Side socialites. Yet the Hamptons, just an LIRR ride away, remain terra incognita. I blame my New England upbringing. We Boston Brahmins had Martha’s Vineyard, Maine, and Nantucket, while the nouveau riche—sorry, I mean New Yorkers—had the Hamptons.
Now older, wiser, and perhaps more open-minded, I’m curious to see what all the fuss is about. F. Scott Fitzgerald fandom is reason enough to trek out east. More than that, I want to see the Hamptons for the same reason I cherish Coney Island or Yankee Stadium: they are places enshrined in the mythology of New York City—and America writ large. Chelsea Living Room’s East End outpost might finally give me the excuse I need to go.
