Asian cuisine and more on North Ferry Road: Opties & Dinghies opens early, stays open late

Claudia Lin and Vincent Bertault get up early and stay up late.

Since Father’s Day this year, at 6:30 a.m. every day of the week, the couple unlock the door to their restaurant, Opties & Dinghies on North Ferry Road.

Then it’s putting up the umbrellas at the outside tables, prepping food as Mr. Bertault is getting the oven hot to bake. At 7 a.m., the doors are open for early morning sit-down breakfasts or Islanders beginning their commute by stopping in for coffee and a croissant, pastry or a breakfast crêpe to go made by Mr. Bertault before heading for the ferry.

Then it’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner of Asian specialties — customers swear by the dumplings — cooking, getting food ready for pickup (frozen dumplings to go), serving meals and scooping generous portions from the gelato bar.

“People come by to pick up, but we don’t deliver,” Ms. Lin said. She caught herself and said, smiling, “Oh, except for one case.”

A loyal customer, a 97 year old woman, said that she didn’t drive after 10 o’clock in the morning. “When I asked her why, she said, ‘By that time there are so many cars and people on the roads. Now, how am I going get my lo mein?’ I laughed and said I’d deliver to her. So, yes, we will deliver. But only if you have a very good reason.”

By a little after 10 p.m., the doors are closed, and the couple begin cleaning the restaurant, top to bottom, for the morning. Rides for some members of the small staff to North Ferry are made, and finally, by about 11 or 11:30 p.m., the couple is home in their place on the Island.

“We have dinner,” Ms. Lin said, “usually salad or leftovers, like someone sent something back and we have it. We talk — a little bit about the business — but mostly this is our personal time, so we talk to each other, sometimes about our families. We have large extended families all over the world. Vincent is from France originally and I’m” — she added with a smile — “Chinese by way of Brooklyn.”

That’s their schedule, every day and night, except recently when they closed the restaurant on Thursdays. “When you own your own business, you do more,” she said.  “We’re always hands on.”

Opties & Dinghies is in the spot that the Reiter family’s beloved Bob’s Fish Market once occupied, and right next door is North Fork Seafood, the fresh fish market owned by local fisherman Jermaine Owens.

When they were New Yorkers more than 20 years ago, Ms. Lin and Mr. Bertault worked as architectural designers, and it shows in the light-filled space, comfortable seating, and pristine white colors with traces of green, giving the place an upscale tropical feeling. The double case of Il Labortorio gelato flavors adds to the feeling of being on vacation even when you’re five minutes from home.

As for the menu, the Reporter’s sister publication, Southforker magazine, outlined some choices in a recent article, noting the restaurant “offers a giddy round-up of dim-sum favorites: around eight to 10 different types of dumplings that are core to the menu (which come in small or large — that is, four or eight-dumpling servings), a multitude of other satisfying dishes like sticky rice, crispy, light-as-air scallion pancakes, plump lotus bean or pork bao, gently spicy cold sesame noodles and a whole menu of sweet and savory crepes. Oh, and quiche options, too — you know, just in case you’re still hungry. The gelato is an evolving 40-flavor-strong center of scoops that will have you checking back in weekly to see what’s new.”

SAILING INTO THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS

The name of the restaurant, Ms. Lin explained, comes from the small sailboats called Optimists — opties for short — used by youngsters learning to sail — and dinghies, the small rowboats that now and then are rigged with a sail.

“Vincent’s a sailor,” Ms. Lin said, and when they discovered the East End, they kept their boat in Greenport and it wasn’t long before they knew they wanted to live somewhere in the area. That somewhere was Orient, where they moved 20 years ago and where they still have a house, and rent on the Island.

They opened the original Opties & Dinghies five years ago in what Ms. Lin described as “a hole-in-the-wall next to the Orient Post Office.”

But in November, it ended on an extremely sour note, with what Ms. Lin described as a contentious landlord and tenant dispute that included lawsuits from both sides and more than 20 police reports filed. When the lease was up, Ms. Lin said, they closed own.

“We weren’t going to give up, though. We had found a vibe in Orient, walking to work, giving added value to the village. We’ve found that here, too.”

The restaurant business is notoriously difficult and Ms. Lin said it was more so on Shelter Island. With population dropping precipitously in the off-season, there are many less customers. “It’s a seasonal business, but our rent isn’t seasonal.”

Ms. Lin also noted that many more tourists and day trippers come to the North Fork in the fall and winter, but don’t take the ferry to the Island, so that cuts down on business.

“We do have one advantage here by staying open until 10, so people can stop in for a late dinner,” Ms. Lin said. Customers come back and tell others about the treats in store at Opties & Dingies.

Long days bring great rewards, Ms. Lin said. ‘We’re so happy at the way Shelter Island has welcomed us.”