Fort Pond has witnessed centuries of reinvention along its banks — Montaukett fishing camps, Navy torpedo stations, Canadian cod haulers chasing the railroad south, Carl Fisher’s roaring twenties fantasy of a Tudor seaside empire. Buildings have been dragged bodily from one shore to another, renamed by every generation that claimed them, burned and rebuilt and reimagined in the long ritual of a place that refuses to sit still. At 51 South Edgemere Street, where the water catches the last orange light of a Hamptons sunset like a sheet of hammered copper, the latest chapter of that ritual is Mavericks Montauk — a 200-seat modern steakhouse that opened in spring 2023 and immediately announced itself as the most ambitious dining project the East End had seen in years. Conceived by managing partner and sommelier Vanessa Price and James Beard-nominated Executive Chef Jeremy Blutstein, Mavericks occupies a building whose bones stretch back over a century, yet whose current incarnation feels startlingly, defiantly new (Southforker, 2023).
A Building with Nine Lives on Fort Pond
The physical structure at 51 South Edgemere has survived more identities than most Montauk families. According to the Montauk Library’s historical archives, the building originated as Bill’s Restaurant, photographed as early as 1940 when it sat in the old fishing village on Fort Pond Bay. When the U.S. Navy commandeered that waterfront land in 1943 to build a torpedo testing facility, the restaurant — like many structures in the village — was physically rolled to Edgemere Road, where it landed a spectacular view of Fort Pond proper (Montauk Library, 2022). William Belber’s original operation was renowned for letting tourists select their own lobsters from an open tank, and his cocktail lounge attracted local businessmen year-round.
Under Clifford and Rita Stanley, the establishment became Bill’s Inn through the 1950s, then transitioned into the Windjammer around the 1970s under Socrates and Tricia Hiotakis, a beloved neighborhood fixture. A long Pan-Asian chapter followed as East by Northeast — the “E.N.E.” to regulars — which earned Zagat ratings and became a social anchor for Montauk’s evolving food scene. A brief incarnation as Pulcinella East flickered in 2019 before the property sold to a limited liability company for $7.1 million in 2018 (East Hampton Star, 2019). Vanessa Price took the helm of a five-year renovation that would strip the building to its studs, uncover two sets of hidden roof joints and windows sealed inside walls, and install thirty-foot steel beams to open up a dining room once cluttered with structural posts (Southforker, 2023).
The Visionaries: Vanessa Price and Jeremy Blutstein
Mavericks exists because of a partnership forged in shared obsession with the unseen details of hospitality. Vanessa Price arrived in the restaurant world through wine, not kitchens. Originally from Kentucky, she moved to Manhattan in 2007 to work as a sommelier on the Upper East Side and built a career that sprawled across every facet of the industry — sales representative, importer, educator, wine columnist for New York Magazine, instructor at Columbia University, resident sommelier on NBC’s TODAY Show, and bestselling author of Big Macs & Burgundy: Wine Pairings for the Real World (Violet Luxury, 2023). She holds a Level 4 certification from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust and serves as Wine Director at Wildflower Farms, an Auberge Resort Hotel. Her trajectory toward Montauk began in 2018 while covering eastern Long Island for the wine importer-distributor Maisons Marques & Domaines USA, an arm of Champagne Louis Roederer.
Price never intended to open a restaurant. The catalyst came during a meal at Gramercy Tavern, where head chef Michael Anthony — one of the most respected figures in contemporary New York dining — recommended Jeremy Blutstein without hesitation (Edible East End, 2022). Blutstein’s résumé reads like a map of the East End itself. Born in Manhattan but raised in Amagansett, he began working kitchens at fourteen, starting at the Farmhouse in East Hampton. He opened the Surf Lodge in 2008, ran Crow’s Nest in Montauk, served as chef de cuisine at Almond in Bridgehampton alongside Jason Weiner (with whom he co-founded the fermented foods company Kimchi Jews), and earned a 2012 James Beard Award nomination as executive chef at Tremont in the West Village. He later helmed Showfish at Gurney’s Star Island Resort, collecting accolades from the Wall Street Journal, Vogue, and Travel & Leisure (James Lane Post, 2023). His connection to the 51 South Edgemere building is personal — he previously served as executive chef at E.N.E., where he and his wife Jarhn once lived in the apartment upstairs.
The Kitchen: Locavore Steakhouse, Reimagined
Blutstein describes Mavericks as a restaurant born from relationships, not supply chains. Every item on the menu connects back to a person in the East End community — Alex Balsam of Balsam Farms, his childhood friend from Amagansett with whom he once picked raspberries as a boy; Marilee Foster growing exceptional produce; Amanda Iaocona raising top-tier poultry; Art Ludlow producing artisan dairy; Dereyk Patterson forging handmade knives that guests select tableside when ordering special Wagyu beef courses (Parade, 2025). The sourcing philosophy is uncompromising: all beef comes from New York State, seafood is locally caught by Montauk’s commercial fishing fleet, and seasonal produce is drawn from farms stretching from Bridgehampton to the Hudson Valley.
The menu centers on wood-fired, dry-aged steaks — the forty-eight-ounce porterhouse is a centerpiece — but expands well beyond the steakhouse template. Signature dishes include grilled oysters with kimchi and house-smoked lardo, bone-in tuna ribeye with housemade harissa, whole Montauk black sea bass, Southampton maitake mushroom steak, smoked bluefish rillettes with house-made crackers, and ramp cavatelli with all pastas made in-house. The kitchen also features a caviar service, a lobster cocktail that draws consistent praise, and a limited-count Mavericks Burger served with au poivre sauce and caramelized onions slow-cooked in foie gras fat — available nightly until it sells out (Cititour, 2025). Pastry chef Rémy Ertaud, who refined his technique over three years in Paris including a stint leading the pastry department at the Michelin-starred Le Pré Catelan, oversees a dessert program anchored by a key lime pie that has become a quiet cult favorite (Mavericks Montauk, 2025).
The Wine Program and Cocktail Culture
If the kitchen is Blutstein’s domain, the beverage program represents Price’s full creative vocabulary. Her wine list is designed as an argument for accessibility without condescension, featuring large-format bottlings from around the world alongside a dedicated section of New York wines — a conscious act of supporting local agriculture in a market where expendable income is abundant but serious, curated wine lists have historically been scarce (Natalie MacLean, 2023). She draws on nearly two decades of industry experience and her philosophy that wine is fundamentally about mood, season, and the company you keep.
The cocktail program, developed in consultation with Jarhn Blutstein — Jeremy’s wife and an exceptionally talented mixologist — is built on classic foundations elevated by premium spirits and inventive details. The Mavericks Martini, served extra dirty with blue cheese-stuffed olives and Mavericks-branded ice, has become a signature order. Head bartender Demetri Sopkiw executes the vision nightly, with touches like the Sourpuss cocktail topped with a rice wafer embossed with the Mavericks logo — a stylized “M” resembling a bird in flight silhouetted against sunset colors (Hamptons.com, 2023). The beer selection leans local as well, featuring Springs Brewery offerings alongside the broader list.
The Space: Art, Architecture, and Obsessive Detail
Walking through Mavericks’ tall modern glass doors, the first thing a guest encounters is a 700-pound shark sculpture by RISK, the renowned Los Angeles street artist, establishing the restaurant’s distinctive blend of maritime grit and contemporary elegance (Hamptons.com, 2023). Beyond it hangs an original 1966 Andy Warhol “Cow” — not a print — greeting diners with a wink of pop-art irreverence that signals this is not your grandfather’s Montauk steakhouse (Southforker, 2023). Overhead, a grand golden light fixture hangs like a constellation in a recessed ceiling, one of many details that function as visual Easter eggs throughout the space.
The renovation removed the building’s old structural posts and replaced them with concealed steel beams, opening the dining room into an airy, light-filled expanse with walls of windows framing unobstructed sunset views across Fort Pond. The hand-stained floors, custom millwork on the bar, and open-concept layout allow the room to feel simultaneously intimate and expansive, with a slightly raised bar area anchoring the center as the restaurant’s beating heart. Four exclusive private dining spaces accommodate events and special occasions, and the property also includes a renovated sixteen-unit motel with solar panels and upgraded accessibility features (East Hampton Star, 2019). Price’s team installed the space over nearly five years, treating every square inch as an opportunity to express intention — a philosophy that Peter from the Heritage Diner, who has spent twenty-five years learning that the unseen decisions behind a restaurant’s walls matter more than the visible ones, can recognize as the mark of operators who understand longevity.
Community, Sustainability, and the Montauk Ethos
Blutstein frames Mavericks as a corrective to the seasonal “smash-and-grab” model that has come to define parts of East End hospitality — restaurants that chase tourist dollars for a few months, cut corners on sourcing and service, then disappear. His stated mission is to bring genuine hospitality back to Montauk, operating as a permanent part of the community rather than a temporary extraction (James Lane Post, 2023). The restaurant practices zero-waste culinary philosophy from nose to tail, and Price has demonstrated environmental stewardship through the renovation process, considering nitrogen-reducing septic upgrades and revegetation efforts along the Fort Pond shoreline to protect the pond’s water quality — a concern raised directly by the East Hampton Town Planning Board during site review (East Hampton Star, 2019).
The team’s Instagram presence, particularly Blutstein’s popular @chefblutstein account with its nightly Montauk sunset documentation, has built a following that extends the restaurant’s reach well beyond its seasonal opening. Guest reviews consistently highlight not only the food but the warmth of individual staff members — servers like Scarlet, Isabella, and Cornelia are cited by name repeatedly across review platforms, suggesting a service culture that invests in its people rather than cycling through seasonal labor. With a 4.5-star rating across 429 Google reviews and recognition from publications ranging from goop to Indagare to the East Hampton Star, Mavericks has established itself as a destination restaurant that the Hamptons dining scene genuinely needed (Google Reviews, 2025).
Essential Information
Address: 51 South Edgemere Street, Montauk, NY 11954
Phone: (631) 668-8506
Website: mavericksmontauk.com
Email: info@mavericksmontauk.com
Reservations: Available via Resy — Large party requests (14+) to getatable@mavericksmontauk.com
Hours (Seasonal): Wednesday–Sunday dinner service; Wednesday–Thursday and Sunday 5:00 PM–9:00 PM; Friday–Saturday 5:00 PM–10:00 PM; Closed Monday–Tuesday. Weekend lunch and brunch available mid-June through summer. Hours expand to seven-day dinner service from Memorial Day Weekend.
Cancellation Policy: Reservations may be cancelled on Resy up until 2:00 PM day-of. A $50 per person no-show fee applies after that window. Tables are held 15 minutes past reservation time.
Private Dining: Four exclusive spaces available for events and special occasions — contact the restaurant directly to customize.
Cuisine: Modern steakhouse with locally sourced seafood, seasonal produce, and an extensive wine program.
Price Range: $$$$
Delivery: Takeout available; no delivery service.
Parking: On-site.
Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible with ADA-compliant restrooms and motel accommodations.
Dress Code: Upscale casual. Adult-oriented environment — families welcome but strollers, iPads, and child seating are not available in the dining room.
Social Media: @mavericksmontauk on Instagram
Peter from the Heritage Diner has spent twenty-five years at 275 Route 25A in Mount Sinai understanding what it takes for a restaurant to become permanent architecture in a community’s life. He is also the founder of Marcellino NY, a bespoke English bridle leather workshop in Huntington, and holds graduate degrees in Philosophy from Long Island University and The New School in New York City. He and his wife Paola, a licensed broker, are preparing to launch Maison Pawli, a boutique real estate venture on Long Island’s North Shore, in 2026.
