Dan's Papers - July 3, 2009 - Restaurant Review: Red Rooster

Not content with the continued success of Pepi's, on the water in Southold and now in its eleventh year of serving excellent North Italian food, Nick Nikolov has gone all rustic with his new restaurant, Red Rooster. The venerable old house on Depot Lane that most recently housed Farmers Bar has been completely transformed by him - he literally did most of the conversion work - into a very warm, comfortable and fascinatingly furnished restaurant where everyone will feel very relaxed. From the enormous chicken on the front lawn to those decorating plates and the walls, Nick makes Mr. Purdue look like a novice when it comes to chickens.

Nick's mission statement for Red Rooster is to offer 'food to crow about at chicken feed prices', very commendable sentiments in these days of recession. Chef Irwin Schwartz, for some reason known to all and sundry as 'Snake', told us that he literally has traveled the world, having visited and cooked in over forty countries. Despite the restaurant's name, chicken is not the major item on the menu. In fact our first appetizer was a crab cake served on a Portobello mushroom. This very different presentation worked very well, especially as the crab cake really deservedly was described as being 'loaded with jumbo crab meat' and with little or no filler, the final result was one of the best appetizers we have ever enjoyed.

We had to sample the plump and tender Red Rooster wings and the sauce was just hot enough for our tastes. If you like them blazing hot tell your server.

Nick comes from Bulgaria and the chopped salad was very typical of that part of the world, with chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions and parsley all topped with an abundance of great tasting Bulgarian feta cheese and dressed with just a drop of apple cider vinaigrette. We really enjoyed this salad and it should prove to be one of the top selling items here.

The menu offers a variety of burgers based on beef, turkey or bison, with a wide range of stuffings and toppings, but the list of entrees made great reading, ranging from baby back ribs to a pot roast, hanger steak, pan fried pork chops and roasted L.I. duck and of course it had to include a free range roast chicken. I chose the boneless short ribs and Stella the lobster roll. The lobster roll came as a very large portion of very tasty lobster, nicely dressed and overflowing the toasted roll. Opting for a vegetable other than potatoes they served her some roasted asparagus that was very complementary to the lobster. My short ribs proved to be a dish that I could happily eat at least once a week. The meat was trimmed and sliced onto the plate and came with wonderful gravy plus mashed potatoes and carrots and haricot verts. The meat really did melt in the mouth and the overall tastes were deep and rich without being overwhelming. The combination was perfection and showed just how good a simple dish can be when it is correctly and honestly prepared from high quality ingredients.

At present, desserts are brought in and the chocolate peanut butter pie and the warm apple pie a la mode that we sampled were both excellent.

Red Rooster has just received their liquor license and Nick plans to have a wine list that includes local wines, as well as from other parts of the world, and the intention is for it to be thematic but you will have to visit to find out more about this. Speaking of visiting, this restaurant really should be high on your list if you enjoy well prepared food at very realistic prices. Appetizers are $9 to $12 and entrees that include a choice of potato plus mixed vegetables are mainly $16.50, incredible value for this quality of cooking.

It is always interesting to visit a new restaurant for the first time to review it and this was one of those splendid times when everything much exceeded our expectations. The ambience and the food and the value combined should make Red Rooster one of the hottest, as well as relaxing and fun, places to eat on the North Fork. Reservations are not accepted but the restaurant is open seven days a week from lunchtime until very late.