Photographs: Randee Daddona and Stephen Munshin

ROOFTOP MARINARA

This time of year, most East End chefs can fairly claim an allegiance to the local bounty. But Pietro Bottero, general manager at Annona in Westhampton, has a special distinction in this respect. Lugging wine barrel planters and bags of topsoil and compost up a narrow ladder, he established an impressive rooftop garden above the restaurant. (The restaurant itself dwells above the Manhattan Motorcars of the Hamptons dealership on Riverhead Road in Westhampton.) The planters now boast simply staked tomato plants with a neat, automatic irrigation system.

“We’re getting there,” he reported in early August. “The little guys are kind of looking good. The bigger guys are still ripening.” Bottero has no experience as a gardener, but considers himself a “very handson guy.” Some heavy July rains flooded the pots and set the plants back.

The garden, which replaced some flower and herb plantings (“You can only use so many herbs.”), resonated with the seasonal Italian restaurant’s basic philosophy. Annona—named for the Roman god of the harvest—buys the majority of its produce from North Fork farmers; its seafood comes from a fishing operation in Cutchogue.

“Nothing speaks summer like tomatoes,” Bottero said as he handled a small harvest of Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes. “I’ll start the pan with EVO [extra-virgin olive oil] and garlic, and as the garlic cooks down a little bit, I’ll throw in 10 or 12 of the little guys per order.” The skins eventually yield to the heat and the interior slowly leaks out and forms a sauce with the garlic. “If you time it right, the pasta is just coming out of the water, and you add the pasta when it’s still al dente. The noodle will actually take on the tomato juice. And it’s there, it’s perfect.”

When bigger tomatoes—Husky golds, among others—arrive, Bottero will turn them into salads alongside local peaches. “I don’t want to say that they taste better or that it’s cost effective,” he said. “Because I’m sure the tomatoes I can buy are just as good. But there’s definitely a sense of pride. This dish is, from beginning to end, an in-house dish.”