Plenty of Manhattan restaurants open pop-ups in the Hamptons during the summer. Success is not guaranteed. Scott Sartiano brought his Soho-based Sartiano to East Hampton and Faced with anger Angry neighbors. The acclaimed Red Hook Tavern recently ran as the Sag Harbor Tavern; il Buco El Mare, the former spawn of il Buco, was booking reservations this summer. Such endeavors usually work best as summertime side projects, forgotten after Labor Day.
On Thursday night, however, a full replica of the Polo Bar, a celeb-stuffed comfort food spot that exists as a restaurant version of Ralph Lauren’s world-building, opened on a 19-acre horse ranch in Bridgehampton. The Polo Bar is complete with pictures of horses, saddle paraphernalia and propped-up polo mallets à la the East End that also pepper the original location on 55th Street. There were cheese popovers at every seat and most of them also had burgers. Those who stepped outside, however, heard crickets instead of a midtown honk.
And unlike most sequels, this new polo bar seemed as star-studded as an underground bar in Manhattan. Walking in, there was Judd Law Josh with Tom Hiddleston At the bar, next to the billionaires Jonathan And lizzie table, Who just got martinis to clink together Justin Theroux, Even a martini in hand. Some young stars too: Joey King, Diana Silvers, And Cole Sprouse Herbie was quaffing drinks while snacking on cocktail peanuts. Things were starting to get surreal. What was this fictional Hamptons-based polo bar? Laura Dern Went in together Twin Peaks costars Naomi Watts? Usher Drinking some kind of orange cocktail? what is Kacey Musgraves doing here? Coleman Domingo, or you? A guy who looked like a fashion bro, but was also seven feet tall – oh, that was right Art-Collection Miami Heat Power Forward Kevin Love. The bartender who said “My pleasure, bro,” when someone ordered a cocktail: I’m pretty sure he was a model, not like a part-time model. famous Models Come to think of it, there seemed to be models…everywhere? And there a a lot Like the Secret Service, when more than once last year Ivanka Trump Sat next to me on the polo lounge At the Beverly Hills Hotel, and, hey, it was…
Yes, the first female Dr. Jill Biden Dining at a pop-up polo bar in the Hamptons, he sat next to the visionary who dreamed up the space—Ralph Lauren. Okay, so, full story: This wasn’t actually a permanent Hamptons-based polo bar—sorry to those who read all this and started hitting the polo bar-gatekeeper line. Chutine Fong To get the corner four-top at seven o’clock this Saturday. If you went to Khalili Stables today, you’d see real horses rather than pictures of horses, real pigs instead of pigs in blankets. Lauren decided to kick off New York Fashion Week by unveiling her Spring 2025 collection in Long Island’s East End and hosting everyone for dinner at a full-scale version of the Polo Bar, which would exist for one night only.
At least one New York restaurateur was impressed. “I’ve done pop-ups upstate in Ray, but never this fancy,” said Theroux, part-owner and full-time avatar for the Lower East Side pseudo-dive he talked about.
Most of the show’s attendees had to be shuttled out of town, taking them away from art fairs and gallery openings and other fashion shows and the US Open semifinals. Those who traveled by helicopter and seaplane arrived in time to see a series of RL-clad jockeys dressage horses as waiters around seafood bites. Rolling Greens surrounds dozens of stables, a compound where some of our most acclaimed equestrian Napo Babies—Jennifer Gates, Jessica Springsteen, Eve Jobs– honed their skills. (It sold three years ago, and is back on the market for $15.8 million.) Many of the Sprinter van and black car takers got caught in some unruly traffic, arriving just in time for the fashion show. Mercifully pushed back 45 minutes. A truly Hamptons experience!
Once everyone had taken their seats for the show, any thoughts of bumper-to-bumper the second the lights fell down the runway, and the first model walked out to the Immortal Strains. Christopher Cross’s “Sailing,” a blast of pure yacht rock: a soft rock song about yachts. A few horses were chilling at the end of the platform. Horses in Fashion Shows: I mean, you don’t see that very often at Milk Studios.
One by one models, incl Naomi Campbell And Christy Turlington Burns, Helped create the Ralph Lauren version of the American Dream, filtered through the lens of a historic Hamptons hamlet. This being a Ralph Lauren show, the designer’s own history is notable along with a multitude of geographies. Before the Hamptons exploded as a playground for the powerful in the 1980s and 1990s, Lauren began renting houses in the formerly bohemian enclaves of Southampton and East Hampton. He now has a compound in Montauk and several stores to the east, and he connects today’s look with the past history of the Hamptons—de Kooning’s, Pollock’s, the early Impressionist shows at Guild Hall—which were still somewhat present when he arrived.
“The Hamptons is more than a place,” Lauren said in a statement. “It is a natural world with endless blue skies, seas, green fields and white fences, a quality of rusticity and elegance that attracted artists here decades ago. It is home, my refuge and always an inspiration.”
The first lady’s presence helped boost the evening’s already high-only-America portion. Biden arrived at Khalili Stables with the president’s granddaughter Finnegan, And they both started mingling with the guests by saying hello to Hiddleston. (The first lady seemed to have a nice chat too Vogue Global Editorial Director and Condé Nast Chief Content Officer Anna Wintour.) We should note that Dr. Biden has a long history with the brand and wore Ralph Lauren last month when she introduced her husband, the president. Joe Biden, At the Democratic National Convention.
Lauren also designed the opening and closing ceremony outfits for Team America at the Summer Olympics, and several attendees, including volleyball players, walked around the cocktail hour with medals around their necks. Chiaka Obogu and swimmers Bobby Finke. As if to hammer it home, when the show ended, Lauren stepped out in a red, white and blue motocross jacket emblazoned across the front with “USA” to the music of Frank Sinatra—another kid from New York’s outer reaches that bent America to its will. , who sculpted the country in his own image.
Then, it was time for the Polo Bar. The room was a sea of dry martinis, punctuated by the faces of a dozen fashion magazine editors-in-chief, and even the models opted for Gruyere-stuffed popovers on minimal saddle-leather banquettes. (Some people also smoked cigarettes in the back of the restaurant, just like in Manhattan.) The first female designer, sat with his wife. Ricky, and his son David, Married to another person well known to the White House: Lauren Bush Lauren, Granddaughter and niece of HW W. Dern stopped by for a few minutes to gab and say hello to Biden, before exchanging quips and numbers with Musgraves. Turlington Burns sat at the table next to him with his son and daughter, who both walked in the show. Theroux asked Antony Porovsky If he wanted to split the famous Polo Bar cheeseburger. He did.
Dinner went down surprisingly quickly, with desserts coming out just after nine. Several modes of transport await, with the ground option available in a fairly traffic-less hour and 40 minutes. On one of the last tables, Rufus Wainwright Dern and her daughter sat down in conversation Jaya Harper, before suddenly getting up to leave.
“I’m taking one of those helicopters back to New York, right on my doorstep!” Wainwright said.
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