THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Escabar Restaurant & Raw Bar

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Escabar Restaurant & Raw Bar Restaurant Review:

When Escabar opened in this village-y area in 2005, its focus was French cuisine. And while the large patio (enclosed and comfortably heated in winter, alfresco in summer) features a raw bar and an Americanized Riviera feel, vaguely reminiscent of a place reveling in bouillabaisse, the seasonally adapting, seafood-rich menu now embraces other international influences. Seared sea bass (one of the best dishes here), for example, cradled in a shell of crisp pepper pappadum with a chickpea and mint salad sweeps you off to India before lardons and crème fraîche return you to France. A few non-aquatic options such as coriander-cinnamon-seared pork tenderloin and bucatini Bolognese hold their own alongside rosemary baked wahoo, New Zealand green mussels and calamari. Fittingly, the tiny, asymmetrical interior emits a generic foreign élan (beware: a smoking ban until after 10 p.m. indoors isn’t uniformly enforced). Its minimalist modern art gallery décor, pulsating soundtrack and lights that change color every so many beats offer a casually sophisticated setting for friends dining pre-post artsy film at nearby Westhampton Theater or romantic couples moon-eyed over their bottles of wine.