Inside Stories
By Jack Otter

Heading Up Reports On Dining in the Hamptons

In the coming days, it will be hard to find a Manhattan-based newspaper or magazine that doesn't have a feature on the Hamptons - where to eat, swim, eat, see celebrities, eat or rent a room. Did we mention eat?

Most of the articles will include a breathless description of the latest, hottest restaurant, and there's a good chance the information came from Steve Haweeli. Haweeli is the Howard Rubenstein of East End eateries, a guy who not only knows what's on every menu, but on any given summer Monday, he can tell you which celebrity has the cuttlefish at which table over the weekend.

Who cares? Lots of readers, as Haweeli and his clients quickly discovered. He started in 1992 by sending copies of menus to journalists, many to whom promptly threw them out. Then synergy happened. He found that tabloid gossip pages, especially the New York Post's Page Six, were very interested in celebrity eating habits. And restaurant owners figured out that if Barbra had the bisque or Chevy had the chicken, and this information somehow became public, it was good for business.

"I landed out here when the interest in celebrities and the interest in culinary arts took off," Haweeli said. "It was good timing." In the first three weeks of May, he said, he and the two account executives at his company, WordHampton Public Relations Inc., have worked with 11 newspapers, nine magazines, five Web sites, two radio stations and a television station. he has high school students helping stuff press kits.

One of his clients is advertising mogul Jerry Della Femina, no slouch in the public relations arena himself, an owner of two restaurant and a gourmet food store in East Hampton.

"Steve's the real reason the Hamptons are the Hamptons," Della Femina said. "People have walked into my restaurant and said, "Where's Martha Stewart? Is Barbra Streisand here yet tonight?"

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