Seafood Is the New Show at Montauk Yacht Club's Showfish

Matt Murphy’s in his first summer at the new Montauk Yacht Club leading its on-site restaurant, Showfish, but this isn’t his first rodeo.

His story is a tour-de-force that spans from Long Island to Italy and back again, with stops along the way at NYC classics like the Ritz Carlton and the Rainbow Room, before he opened a pair of well-received eateries in Greenport.

Murphy also did some time as head chef at the Jedediah Hawkins Inn, and was the executive chef at the famed La Colombe D’or. 

Like we said, not his first rodeo. 

“I’ve been cooking for 40 years,” said Murphy, who lives in Montauk and Cobble Hill, Brooklyn and spent years honing his craft on the North Fork, and in Italy. “I’ve owned four of my own restaurants. I would love to do one more, honestly, I’m a glutton for punishment.”

For now, however, the well-traveled executive chef is running a tight seafood-forward dining experience that truly shows off the debut dockside and waterfront eatery’s gorgeous Lake Montauk location. 

While there are several never-say-die favorites on the menu, like tuna tartare and caesar salad, there are also some real dazzlers, like squid ink spaghetti with lump blue crab meat, and a butter poached lobster with fennel dressing.

In particular, the squid ink spaghetti with blue crab is a winner. Topped with a red hazelnut pesto, smoked breadcrumbs, and Calabrian chili, it’s about as hearty and satisfying a dish as we’ve sampled this summer in the Hamptons, and screams summer on the coast. 

“It’s kind of reminiscent of a Sardinian or Sicilian dish. They do an old pasta dish where they burn the breadcrumbs and they put it on top. It’s a very old dish,” said Murphy. “There’s a place called Ferdinando’s Focacceria on Union Street in Carroll Gardens and they’ve been serving that dish, a different version, for a hundred years …that’s where the idea came from, it’s a Sicilian version, except ours has crab meat.”

The lump blue crab meat and red hazelnut pesto make it “a little more earthy,” said Murphy. “My sous chef and I came up with that together, we did a little research and Development. We sell a lot of it.”

Showfish sits on the stunning Montauk Yacht Club property in the middle of Lake Montauk. The airy and spacious venue can accommodate up to 190 diners, there are bars at each of the club’s two pools, a private beach, and enough room throughout the enormous property for 174 boat slips and 107 guest rooms.

They throw banquets and put on events. They even have a pizza outlet with a wood-burning oven on-site called Il Forno. 

The stunning property was recently purchased by Safe Harbor Marinas, which owns extravagant marina properties all over the world. The group spent a record $149 million to buy the Montauk Yacht Club from Gurney’s. 

Murphy was brought in by the management group that operates the property. He said he will probably be off to another resort under the management company’s umbrella when the season ends in November, and then will return when MYC reopens in May. 

The dinner menu (they also do breakfast and lunch) at Showfish includes luxe items like caviar and a seafood tower, as well as smaller bites like cacio e pepe pizza and fluke crudo. Salmon, cod, and tuna are all featured and in keeping with the resort’s breezy seaside vibes. 

“The menu has evolved since the beginning of the summer,” said Murphy. “Some things worked, some things didn’t. Montauk is a unique marketplace, the Hamptons is its own market, and some things just don’t work. As a chef, you have to relax and just do things like tuna tartare. I don’t think there’s a chef on either fork that’s wants to do tartare anymore, but you look at the sales and it’s like the number one seller, so you can’t argue with it. It’s what the public wants.”

Showfish is located at 32 Star Island Road in Montauk. Learn more at showfishmtk.com.