Chef Piacente Brings 'The Good' at Montauk's Trailblazing Naturally Good Cafe

Being an executive chef in a top Hamptons restaurant isn’t the glamorous job you might think it is. Between staffing shortages, the grind of long nights and short seasons, and the pressure to stay relevant amid increasingly fierce competition, there are more balls to keep in the air than ever before simply to survive a summer on the East End. 

Two years ago, sensing that something was “broken” in the local restaurant industry, David Piacente left his decade-long position as executive chef at Gosman’s. COVID, he said, exposed a lot of cracks in the industry’s foundation, and he wanted to spend more time with his young family. 

Burned out from 15-hour workdays and an endless to-do list, it didn’t take the experienced Piacente long to find a fresh culinary path to walk.

The 45-year-old Montauk resident and father of three quickly partnered up with old friend and nutritionist Lauren Martin to breathe some fresh life into Naturally Good Foods + Cafe, the longtime organic market and eatery in Montauk that does everything from fresh-squeezed juices to made to order lunch and breakfast to a new Tuesday night dinner series.

“It wasn’t a huge jump for me because I ate here for the last 15 years regularly,” Piacente said of Naturally Good. “I knew the menu before I even walked in the door. It was a very good fit.”

The Naturally Good brand has been around since the ’80s, and in their current downtown locale for more than a decade. Indeed, the Montauk institution was pushing “wellness” years before the rest of the world caught up to the movement.

He says that while there are other markets in the area that claim to make and sell healthy food, they aren’t necessarily committed to organic the way Naturally Good is. 

“If it falls under the Naturally Good umbrella,” said Piacente, “it’s guaranteed to be organic, sustainable, and sourced the right way … we call it “The Good.”

‘The Good’ is the new mantra at the Montauk Highway mainstay, part of an effort to “stay relevant,” as Piacente put it, but also partly a response to what he sees happening to Montauk’s restaurant scene.

“You can’t become complacent and become stale, you constantly have to push what you offer and push new stuff and stay exciting,” said Piacente. “I think people are also tired of spending a lot of money out here for food that’s just not good… there’s a lot of expensive stuff here that’s just not that good.”

That’s why Naturally Good is now offering for the first time a super-fresh, no-frills dinner on Tuesday nights in their sun-soaked backyard called ‘The Good’ dinner series. The emphasis is on simple quality with dishes like pan-roasted Atlantic salmon, filet mignon and sustainable shrimp, Frenched organic chicken, crispy hoisin tofu, and St. Louis BBQ ribs.

It’s also perfect for parents who don’t want to rearrange their lives for a fancy dinner reservation; there’s a thoughtful kids’ menu that shuns chicken fingers and fries.

Said Piacente: “I was thinking, How can I execute a dinner so we can do a decent amount of volume without the overhead… how can I make this different? The meals are simple with good sourced ingredients that are executed well. I’m cooking these dinners the way I’d be cooking at a five-star restaurant … if I was home cooking for my family and I was trying to give them a five-star experience, that’s what this would be … the goal is to try to offer something different.”

Well before Piacente, a Westchester native, started working in East End kitchens in his 20s, he fell in love with Montauk. “I’m 45 and I’ve done 45 summers in Montauk. I don’t know what life is like outside of Montauk in July and August,” he said. 

In addition to his 10-year run at Gosman’s, Piacente’s resume included stints at Della Femina, 1770 House, and North by Northeast. His years as a chef taught him that staffing in the Hamptons is nearly impossible without housing. To that end, he says he spends almost $80k a year to board his valued Naturally Good staff – he employs more than 20 full-time staff during the summer – in a local rental house.

Naturally Good is both an organic grocery and a Montauk go-to for daily breakfast and lunch (a la carte or grab-and-go) made with love and the freshest organic ingredients a local chef can find.

Amazingly, there are no items on their breakfast and lunch menu over $20; not even the delicious shrimp-and-corn quesadilla or The Bruce, made with fresh yellow fin tuna. Given the exceptional quality of their prepared foods, baked goods, juices, and packaged goods, Naturally Good provides something rare in the area: value for your dollar.

“That’s what really deliver on,” Piacente said. “If you look at our prices, we try really hard to not gouge, because we have so many regular customers coming up daily … we keep it the same all year round and we try not to gouge and we try to give everyone the value. When you come to Naturally Good you know what we’re serving you … there’s going to be value in it … when you eat here, you know that it’s really good and you’ll come back.”

Naturally Good Food and Cafe is located at 779 Montauk Highway in Montauk, naturallygoodcafe.com for more information.