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Rosie’s Saved Our Thanksgiving
I now live full-time in Southampton, but spent years in the city running a restaurant-focused blog—often spotlighting places without celebrity-chef fanfare. Out East, that instinct hasn’t changed. And if you ask me where to eat—which happens more often than you’d think—there’s no place I recommend more readily than Rosie’s.
Here’s why.
It isn’t Jean-Georges. It isn’t a buzzy outpost of Wylie Dufresne. And thank goodness for that. What Rosie’s delivers instead is consistency—genuinely good food and a team that understands hospitality in its truest sense. At the center of it all is Stephen: warm, professional, and quietly exceptional at what he does. The kind of presence that sets the tone without ever announcing itself.
This matters—especially on holidays.
Thanksgiving is a complicated one in our house, marked by recent loss and a general sense of emotional tiptoeing. Wanting something that felt special (and pescatarian-friendly), I made the fatal decision to book a “fancy” East Hampton seafood restaurant we don’t normally frequent. The hope was that it would lift the mood.
What we got instead was…diabolically disastrous.
A request for water somehow turned into a procession of servers delivering a teapot of steaming hot water with lemons. Confusion snowballed. By the time the branzino arrived—deboned away from the table due to space constraints—it came back cold, slimy, and alarmingly inedible. At that point, there was nothing to salvage. We left.
Deflated. Surrounded by full dining rooms. Happy people, us, out of options.
Then my mom said it: “Why don’t we try Rosie’s?”
We called. They were open. Hallelujah.
Minutes later, we were in Amagansett—greeted by seasonal décor that deserves its own write-up, firelight flickering softly, and the kind of warmth that resets your nervous system. The staff welcomed us like they meant it—Seb, endlessly kind; Hector, sadly missed that night but always remembered; and Stephen, the true backbone and heart of the restaurant- appearing with hugs and a genuine sense of care that immediately made the day feel recoverable.
And then came the food.
Stephen insisted my mom and sister try the lobster bisque special. What arrived were not polite tasting cups, but generous mugs—closer to a rich seafood chowder, steaming hot (as soup should be), loaded with tender lobster and followed by an involuntary chorus of “mmm.” We also shared the scallop special: beautifully cooked, resting on a cloud of polenta I would happily take home by the quart.
From the regular menu: my sister’s salmon—which she maintains is the best in the Hamptons—was slow-roasted, just set at the center, flaking easily without a hint of dryness, finished with a champagne cream that pulled everything together.
And then there’s the mac and cheese.
This dish has become a personal problem. Served in its own cast-iron pan, it arrives sizzling hot with aromatic cheese wafting upwards with a crisp, bronzed on top, molten beneath—indulgent in the most unapologetic way dish. I think about it daily. My waistline does too.
Other staples worth returning for: the breakfast burrito (arguably the best this side of California) and the much-talked-about scones—TikTok may love them, but here, the buzz is earned.
If consistency matters—if food that never wavers and service that feels genuinely human make the difference—Rosie’s in Amagansett is easy to recommend. And even easier to return to.
