Around 7 p.m. Thursday — just after aperitivo hour — plates of $85 veal parmesan and $82 strip loin were landing on the white-clothed tables at the East Hamptons outpost of Sartiano’s, the trendy Soho Italian restaurant frequented by celebs such as Paul McCartney, Martha Stewart, Margot Robbie and Gisele Bündchen.
But outside the Hedges Inn, which houses the hotspot, trouble seemed to be brewing. As The Post watched, East Hampton cops circled the building four times in less than 30 minutes.
Just after 10 p.m., a restaurant staffer whispered, “There’s a SWAT team outside” — an exaggeration, to be sure, but three police officers surrounded the hydrangea-dappled entrance to slap Sartiano’s with two village violations for “noise,” including recorded music, that could be heard “from 50 feet away,” a restaurant insider told The Post, noting there were no fines.
But, as The Post witnessed, the music — the softest of yacht rock, including America’s “You Could Do Magic” — could not be heard outside the building at any time and was off by 9:20 p.m.
“They’re out to get him,” murmured one diner, a 45-year-old banker who lives nearby.
“Him” is Scott Sartiano, the restaurateur who, according to insiders, has been visited by health inspectors or local police nearly every day since his namesake spot opened in mid July.
As The Post’s Jennifer Gould previously reported, locals claim a letter from the village administration was sent to Hedges neighbors urging them to call in noise complaints.
But some, including other East Hampton business owners, say it’s an all-out war and that Sartiano is being wrongfully targeted by village officials, including Mayor Jerry Larsen, a former police chief.
“They’re watching Scott because other people have had restaurants that have evolved into clubs after a certain hour,” a long-time business owner in East Hampton told The Post. “He’s a smart business man and he’s respectful. He’s not looking to cause controversy.”
It’s been hardly la dolce vita out east for Sartiano this summer. Back in March, he began negotiations to bring his private social club, Zero Bond — the Noho location of which is a favorite of Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian and Mayor Eric Adams — to the historic Hedges Inn.
But the East Hampton Village Board killed off that dream in May, passing an ordinance that all eating and drinking establishments in the village’s historic district must close by 11 p.m.
A lawyer for the inn, Chris Kelly, told The Post in April that the ordinance seemed to be specifically drafted to keep out the club.
“Let’s face it, Zero Bond is really a nightclub … ” village administrator Marcos Baladron said at the village board meeting where the law passed May 17, according to the East Hampton Star. “If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s a duck, and there’s no ducks allowed here.”
“This guy has a vendetta,” a source close to the situation previously claimed to The Post of Mayor Larsen.
In an email received on Friday, Aug. 2, Larsen told The Post that police have responded to four noise complaints at Sartiano’s since it opened — though a source close to the restaurant claimed, “They’ve sent cops seven out of the 10 nights open.”
“The property comes with restrictions because it is located in a residential district. These rules/laws must be adhered to in order to be respectful to its neighbors,” Larsen said in the email.
Meanwhile, on Friday night, the Maidstone Hotel — .2 miles away from Sartiano’s and also in a residential area of the historic district — was hardly silent. Standing some 50 feet away, The Post could clearly hear a tenor belting out “That’s Amore” on the outdoor patio at LDV Italian restaurant, which was opened last month by LDV Hospitality, the group behind Scarpetta in Manhattan and Gurney’s in Montauk.
Just before 10 p.m., the performer could be heard encouraging applauding guests to “sing along!” to “Sweet Caroline.”
“He plays until 9:30 or 10. We don’t want to get in trouble with the town,” an LDV host told The Post, noting that they have not had problems with police.
Some neighbors and business owners say the Sartiano agita seems to be about more than the decibel levels.
“The bottom line is, they want to control the noise and they do not want a party scene in East Hampton Village. The mayor was against Zero Bond, that’s really what it comes down to,” the business owner said.
At the May 17 hearing, resident Robert Burch complained of the prospect of Zero Bond: “They would not be open to the public, they’d be open to celebrities and everything that brings; their entourages, the hangers-on, fleets of black Suburbans and Escalades, and crowds of paparazzi.”
“Mr. Sartiano stated in [a May] Vanity Fair interview that his philosophy is he should be able to do ‘whatever he wants,’” neighbor Kenneth Lipper, who also spoke at the hearing, told The Post. “Indeed, he is trying to carry out his selfish philosophy in operating Hedges Inn however he wants to, whether or not he meets the laws and covenants governing it.”
What Sartiano actually said in that interview was about the private-club nature of Zero Bond.
“That’s one reason celebrities like it: The people that are there on a daily basis, you never read about what they eat, who they’re with,” Sartiano told Vanity Fair. “That’s something I’m very proud of. It takes me back to the late ’90s, when people could do whatever they want. And they’ll never do whatever they want again like that, because they’re too nervous.”
Lipper added: “It is not a big stretch of one’s imagination that a violator of the fire laws governing the historic district, occupancy or noise rules and mandated closing times would cause fire inspectors and police to visit Hedges.”
According to a restaurant insider, the “fire laws” reference is related to a violation Sartiano’s received for green plants that were quickly removed.
Locals told The Post, however, this was not just about Sartiano.
“Years ago [the restaurant in the Hedges Inn] was James Lane Cafe. Neighbors objected to the outdoor dining and activity,” the business owner told The Post. In fact, the Hedges has had to close nightly at 10 p.m. since a 1981 zoning board ruling.
Others have suggested that Larsen may be looking to keep locals happy for his own self-interests.
The mayor owns Protec Security, a private security firm he runs with his wife, Lisa — and which has clients neighboring the Hedges Inn, The New York Times reported in June.
“The neighbors, who the mayor has relationships with, maybe want to guarantee there is no noise in their neighborhood,” one East Hampton business owner told The Post.
The Times notes “it was not hard to find triangular Protec signs sprouting from the lawns of numerous homes nearby” Sartiano’s.
“The truth is, I have one client in earshot of the Hedges Inn and they have never contacted me about this issue,” Larsen said in an email to The Post.
A manager at a different restaurant in East Hampton Village told The Post he is concerned that the police focus on Sartiano’s could mean for other businesses.
“It does give me a little bit of a concern. Did he [Sartiano] rub someone the wrong way at a village town hall meeting? I know vendetta BS like that happens,” the manager said.
He compared the “pettiness” of the Zero Bond/Sartiano’s “vendetta” to the East Hampton pub Rowdy Hall getting slapped with a violation for painting he facade black earlier this year — when the village architectural review board said the color didn’t “harmonize” with the historic district’s colors.
Owners appealed and won.
Several people dining at Sartiano’s on Thursday and Friday told The Post they live nearby and are happy to have a new restaurant at the Hedges.
“We live next door and we’ve been coming here [to East Hampton] for 20 years,” a woman named Teresa, who asked to withhold her last name, said. “You can’t hear anything.”
While Sartiano declined to comment on specifics, he told The Post: “Despite the challenges I face daily, I’m dedicated to delivering a great culinary experience for the East Hampton community at The Hedges Inn.”
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