When chef Ned Baldwin decided to open his own restaurant, he kept asking himself one question: “What’s in the restaurant that I want to go to?” Drawing on fifteen years of working and eating in New York City—including five years at Prune—he came up with Houseman. The menu aims to be both interesting and comforting, because that’s how Baldwin and his co-chef, Adam Baumgart (most recently of Marco’s), eat when they go out. An ambitious dish at Houseman might mean conch with pig’s trotters; at the other end of the spectrum are roasted chicken and a burger that Baldwin is understandably proud of. The 60-seat room shifts from bar up front to more of a dining room in the rear. It’s pretty minimal, save for the big piece of driftwood that comes from a North Fork beach. Reservations are taken for around half the room, so as to leave a lot of room for walk-ins.

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