Cowboy Up at Buttero, the 'Dopo' Group's Latest in East Hampton

Larry and Maria Baum never intended on building a restaurant empire – or even getting into the food business in the first place – but plans change quickly in the Hamptons, and almost 20 years later, their Dopo restaurant group has reaped major success with its four-restaurant portfolio.

It’s no minor feat, particularly when you factor in the pandemic, the seasonal nature of local business, the costs associated with running a high-end restaurant, and that old foe,  the law of averages, which has a way of humbling many less experienced restauranteurs who try to survive in the Hamptons without a long-term plan.

One thing is clear: The Baums and their partners know what they’re doing.

Armed with that know-how (and executive chef Fabio Gutierrez), and taking into consideration the proliferation of Italian-style eateries in the area, the Baums and partner Maurizio Marfoglia recently looked to deviate from the tried-and-true course they had adopted in building up the brand from scratch: They dropped the “Dopo” name from their East Hampton location and rebranded as Buttero, which co-owner Baum described as a high-end steakhouse with an Italian heart.

“Maurizio and I were looking around, talking about the landscape of restaurants in the Hamptons, and success rates and failures, and were trying to think about what was missing,” said Baum. “Maurizio said to me, ‘Look, there really is a need for a very good steakhouse’ … we felt like it was a good time to bring high-end steaks with an Italian flair to the Hamptons, and Buttero was born.”

Buttero, which means cowboy in Italian, is situated neatly in the bright, spacious, highly private Norman Jaffe-designed building on Race Lane in East Hampton Village. With its cowboy-chic décor, you won’t mistake it for another Dopo, even though Buttero isn’t straying totally from the group’s signature Italian fare.

“For us, we just thought it was really hard to find a place where you can get a quality steak at a somewhat reasonable price, really good pasta … some classic Americana stuff … and people just love it. They just don’t know it’s us.”

While you’ll find some typical Italo-Mediterranean-style dishes on the menu, Buttero’s focus is definitely on satisfying your inner carnivore.

The menu is full of hand-selected USDA Prime dry-aged steaks, chops and ribs, including a lollipop rib-eye ($80), a 38-ounce porterhouse for two ($180), and a Berkshire pork chop ($46).

Buttero is being billed as a steakhouse, but there are plenty of non-meat options, too, including seafood such as Gulf of Maine swordfish, as well as reasonably priced pasta dishes you can’t get at their other restaurants (all in the $30 range), and an array of starters, from eggplant parmigiana to tuna tartare.

The Dopo team’s four eateries – the original Dopo la Spiaggia in Sag Harbor, Dopo Argento in Southampton Village, Dopo il Ponte in Bridgehampton, and now Buttero – have had success largely because of the quality of their food – masterminded by executive chef Fabio Gutierrez – but it’s also due in no small part to ownership’s emphasis on the months of the year that aren’t June, July, and August.

“We want to not only service our summer client, but our local clients. The Dopo family is one that does think about not only the summer but the other nine months of the year and the people that live out here. We want people to feel like when they come into a Dopo restaurant that there’s no air of arrogance, that they’re comfortable and love being there, and feel really, really at home. That’s very import to us.”

Ex-Wall Street traders, the Baums have raised their four children in the Sag Harbor school district. The couple’s initial foray into the restaurant business came about as a result of a real estate transaction for a property on Sag Harbor’s waterfront Bay Street.

“When my wife and I originally bought the property we really had no interest in being in the restaurant business other than to be landlords, but then we basically realized it was going to fall on us … I looked at my wife and said, ‘I guess we’re in the restaurant business.’”

Suddenly, with former Conde Nast CEO Steve Florio interested in partnering up, they opened the original version of Tutto il Giorno (the newer one on Sag Harbor’s Main Street is not part of their portfolio).

Although they’ve at times had “too many chefs in the kitchen,” as Baum put it, and never saw themselves as committed restaurant-running types, the Baums, along Marfoglia – who runs the day to day operations at all four restaurants – haven’t looked back.

Said Baum: “For two ex-Wall Streeters living in the Hamptons, raising four kids, who never wanted to get into the restaurant business, we actually really love it, and we’re pretty good at it.”

Buttero is located at 31 Race Lane, East Hampton Village, butterohamptons.com