THE GREAT INDOORS IN THE HAMPTONS

THE best place to eat in the Hamptons is in a garden or on a porch — at your house or a friend’s. In a land blessed with luminescent air and a fantasia of great fish and produce from local markets, why throw money away in restaurants peddling overhyped, transplanted, mediocre Manhattan cuisine, served mostly indoors by seasonal hires better suited to mowing lawns?

I found two happy exceptions last weekend. But the joy of Hamptons al fresco eating came home at the James Beard Foundation’s annual Chefs & Champagne gala under a jumbo, white, circus-style tent on the Wolffer Estate Vineyard.

True, the event was shaded by recent tragedy. Vineyard founder Christian Wolffer perished in a boating accident last winter. And event honorees Alex von Bidder and Julian Niccolini, the Four Seasons co-owners warmly introduced by Beard Foundation president Susan Ungaro, are still coming to terms with the untimely death of longtime chef Christian Albin last month.

Yet the Sagaponack sunshine and grass-scented breezes swept away both recession and mortality. The collection of chefs serving up easy-to-carry morsels better reflected the Manhattan/Hamptons culinary hiplock than the East End joints, like The Palm, Tratta and (God help us) Nello Summertimes, spawned from the big-city originals.

You couldn’t put a gang like this together in Connecticut or upstate. There was Boqueria’s Seamus Mullen, thrilled with his joint’s SoHo expansion and looking unfazed by the painful palindromic arthritis that nearly felled him. A beaming Alain Allegretti was already looking forward to his fall menu (time flies in the kitchen).

A buoyant Niccolini, celebrating his Midtown power temple’s 50th anniversary, was tight-lipped over who’ll succeed Albin. A squad from Restaurant Daniel chuckled over how many people insist on calling Daniel Boulud’s sausage-obsessed DBGB a “hamburger place.”

But the most fun was just scarfing and slurping. Juggling portable octopus, chardonnay and flirty strangers in the open air is what summer in the Hamptons is all about — a truth that made me queasy about eating in any restaurants. I’ve had too many overwrought $35 entrees in noisy, celebrity-infested dining rooms over the years.

We took the plunge nonetheless on two places that epitomize the South Fork old and new. The Lobster Roll on the lonely stretch between Amagansett and Montauk, founded in 1964 and better known as “LUNCH” for its big sign, is as beckoning as ever with wood booths, nautical knickknacks and salt air wafting through the rooms.

We overlooked possibly the most limp and lame “crinkle-cut” french fries on Earth for briny steamer clams (almost extinct in Manhattan and not easy to find even in the Hamptons), a perfectly steamed small lobster and crunchy-battered fish ‘n’ chips (made with “pure white coldwater cod,” the menu promises — just beware the chips).

Lobster Roll is, as they say, what it is. But Rugosa, barely a month old (290 Montauk Highway, East Hampton, next to the US Army tank; 631-604-1550), came as a shock — a professionally run operation with refined food for grown-ups, a breed rarer than the snow leopard east of the Shinnecock Canal.

I’d never heard of owners William (the chef) and Yvette Mammes, and I expected little of a Modern American menu offering locally sourced products and wine from “emerging regions.” But toothsome, lusciously rich duck canneloni flanked by duck confit and trumpet mushrooms made me a believer.

So did a trio of juicy roast lamb loin rounds fervently supported by braised escarole, eggplant marmalade, cumin sauce and a crisp raisin and pine nut tart. Rum baba with blackberry compote and honey ice cream was a dream summer dessert.

Rugosa doesn’t feel like the Hamptons at all, thanks to comfortable and well-spaced tables, a tolerable sound level and waiters who know what they’re doing. It was enough to make us forget, if only briefly, the green and gold glory beyond the walls.

scuozzo@nypost.com