You don’t need to get out of Dodge completely in order to make your Columbus Day holiday a success. In fact, you can eat, drink, and sleep well right here on the North Fork. So why not consider the ultimate pampering of a Staycation? While everyone is battling the traffic gods, just stay put and enjoy the best time of year on the North Fork. The options might actually surprise you.
Where to Stay:
If you’re considering leaving home for the weekend, there are too many great options to count these days, even if you already live on the North Fork. The Lin Beach House has undergone an extensive renovation, and its cozy rooms and bespoke aesthetic is just what the Staycation demands. Not your style? Who can say no to a hotel that juts out onto the water, the way the Sound View in Southold does? If you’re truly lucky, you’ll score one of The North Fork Table & Inn’s four rooms, which book well in advance — so do your due diligence.
But More Importantly — What to Eat and Drink?
These days, the options feel nearly endless on the North Fork. From casual to formal, the list is long. The category of pizza alone might make your head spin. How to choose between the pizza truck Avellino at Macari Vineyards, 1943 Pizza Bar in Greenport, the Sicilian-style Pizzeria Baccaro (also in Greenport), and Pizza Rita’s near-perfect Neapolitan pies in Mattituck?
Even brunch feels too good to be true. At Bruce & Son, which nearly owns the category, you can have both an heirloom tomato sandwich and a Vietnamese egg coffee (basically a thick, whipped custard served with a shot of espresso that is renowned in Hanoi), two items that don’t necessarily go together, but who cares? At Main Road Biscuit Co., biscuits are fluffy, craggy showstoppers. And while you can eat oyster po’boys there, too — and should — you’d be remiss to skip the main attraction.
It’s kind of a sin to plan a day around particular meal times, actually. I like to go to the North Fork and meander, stopping for snacks along the way. Hot donuts at Wickham’s Fruit Farm. Biscuits, of course. A pizza. Tacos at MonTaco. A plate of icy oysters at an outdoor table in the sun at Noah’s in Greenport. At dusk, a glass of wine on Macari’s back porch, before I eat a pizza or two. Then maybe a quiet cocktail at the small bar at the North Fork Table & Inn, where, if it’s cold and dark enough, things feel that much more inviting. Nothing has to be formal to be important when you’re not too far from home. It just has to feel a little different, a little free, a wayward adventure untethered from the everyday trappings. No grocery shopping this weekend. No laundry to do. Just a quiet hotel room and a sunset and enough delicious things to fill up the vacant spots of an unfolding weekend. That, after all, is what a Staycation is for.
