BlackBook Magazine

Up-and-coming artist, Long Island native, and Berklee alum Matt Lowell knows how to keep it real. At his most recent Mercury Lounge performance, Matt provided fans with a fresh new sound. His gripping lyrics and sensational touch on the guitar are a relief from the new generation of attention-grabbing musicians. His songs -- such as his latest, "Falling Through the Cracks" -- are particularly sincere. Lowell's laid-back yet lively stage persona makes his fans truly feel the music, as his genuine smile and natural ability come alive through his performance.

In the Hamptons, check out new listings for Springs General Store (basic shack with sublime pies) and La Fondita (a stylized but stylish taqueria). For full listings, see our Hamptons restaurant guide.

Despite East Hampton Village’s attempt to ban new joints from selling food and drinks to go -- ice cream cones included -- the East End is bustling with desserteries prepared to indulge every sweet-toothed patron within a five-mile radius. Here are our picks for the ones not to miss.

Based on classic Italian recipes, the 20-plus creamy gelati offered at Sant Ambroeus is prepared fresh daily. While nothing comes cheap at this uber-trendy spot, the scene -- chock-full of euro eye candy -- complements the cost.

It can’t all be sipping Bellinis at Nello with skeletal social X-rays who look like a sprig of frisee will send them straight to the vomitorium. There are some enticing options for red-meat eaters out East, too. Everyone has ideas about what makes a good burger. Here are ours.

The bistro burger at Almond is so good, it should be eliminated from competition. The special sauce cooked into the all-beef patty is likely Bordeaux. Maybe Burgundy. They won’t say.

This past Saturday, BlackBook and New York's denizens of chic migrated to the Hamptons for a fashionable fete. Fashion expert Robert Verdi hosted Basil Hayden’s celebration of our latest issue, held at the Kobe Beach Club in East Hampton. The Hamptons provided the perfect locale for our summer soiree, with its picturesque surroundings and bevy of VIP guests and socialites (see our gallery of the evening). Imbibers, including restaurateur Jeffery Chodorow and his wife Linda, Zach Chodorow, Annabel Vartanian, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Miguel Forbes, BlackBook editor-in-chief Ray Rogers, and author of How the Other Half Hamptons, Jasmin Rosemberg, mingled while enjoying savory hors d’oeuvres (made with Kobe beef, of course) and delectable Basil Hayden cocktails. Music provided by DJ Jesse Marco complemented the perfect summer night weather.

In the Hamptons, check out new listings for the Clam Bar (no better place for a beer and a platter of littlenecks) and Hampton Coffee Company (famous roasting temple makes best java around). For full listings, see our Hamptons restaurant guide.

The Hamptons are a thing you know, a New York craze. Putting together the perfect Hamptons itinerary is demanding -- the near equivalent of shopping for the perfect little black dress or learning French. Just as I was beginning to get the hang of the New York nightlife scene, the Hamptons have opened their summery doors to reveal a standard of living that isn’t all rest and relaxation.

Maybe you think most of Long Island along the L.I.E. is just a wasteland of Bennigans, Applebees, TGIFridays, Wendys and McDonalds. But how wrong you’d be. Sort of. Every desert has its oases -- also its scantily clad chicken-wing hawkers. So you can pull over for a bite, or floor it until you hit the Starbucks in Manorville the way you usually do. Here are a few places worth a stopover on the drive out east up 495.

What, you’re stopping already? On the ass-(aka LIC-)end of the Queensborough Bridge, Sage American serves up organic eats and sandwiches, and it's just a three-block detour on the way to 495. Try it. When else would you find yourself in Queens?

To paraphrase (okay misappropriate) food critic and author Raymond Sokolov, the Hamptons' East End is a narrow island off the coast of Manhattan devoted to the pursuit of brunch. In New York, the ladies, they lunch; when in the Hamptons, they brunch. Nosh with the best of them at the following BlackBook-approved locales. And check out our full Hamptons listings in restaurants, nightlife, and hotels.

Having inherited the morning-nosh mantle from the diner that occupied this Sag space before it, perennial brunch pick New Paradise Café (despite Durkin and Co.’s protestations that it is no longer a breakfast joint) serves a mean Bloody Mary to wash down the house specialty L.E.O.

Adam Alpert, director of promotions for white-hot nightclub 1Oak (“1 Of A Kind”), is a true New York City party boy. From trips to St. Tropez in diapers to managing events at Manhattan restaurants and clubs, Alpert doesn’t know the meaning of a night off. Sushi Samba, Butter, and Pop Burger are among the notches on his belt, not to mention more in the Hamptons and those infamous New Year's Eve parties in South Beach. Still, the med school student turned nightlife aficionado took a minute to talk with us about parties, Darwin, and those curious 1Oak paintings.

Point of Origin: “Born and raised on the Upper East Side. Went to Horace Mann high school in the Bronx. Went to collage at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I was pre-med. The summer after my junior yr of college, right before I started studying for the MCATS, I came home for the summer and started going out to night clubs and enjoying myself. After a few weeks, people were calling me, begging me to come, giving me drinks for free, and I became immersed in this culture, and entranced by this, and how all the different industries come together at night, and I loved it