On the North Fork, Christoph Mueller and his chefs don’t just shop for ingredients: they walk the fields where they’re grown.
Some chefs head to the local farmer’s market to select the freshest produce. However, Mueller and his chefs visit the farms themselves, such as Sang Lee in Cutchogue. It’s about having a constant dialogue with the farmers who grow the food, and using their expertise to influence the menu.
“We walk around, and we talk to them, and we pick things, and we try things, and it’s almost a daily thing,” Mueller says. “Sometimes I go myself, sometimes the chefs go…, but it’s definitely a close dialogue with all these farmers. And that’s really the strength of the North Fork.”
That philosophy—hands-on, ingredient-first, and deeply local — drives everything Mueller does on the North Fork. The Swiss-born restaurateur has three businesses in Greenport: Alpina, Green Hill Kitchen, and Anker, as well as Alpina Bakery in Water Mill.
‘Enormous potential’
Seven years ago, after selling his instrumentation business, Mueller decided to invest in commercial real estate in the North Fork. He was looking for a sound investment and turned to Greenport. In his eyes, the historic harbor town had “enormous potential to grow.”
Over time, he purchased three properties, all of which contained restaurants. He went from being a landlord to a fixture in the Greenport hospitality scene. His tenant, the then proprietor of Deep Water Grill, canceled their lease — and Mueller took the space over, turning it into Anker.
Mueller inherited concepts, navigated the sudden vacancies of tenants, and even launched a passion project, Alpina, to honor his heritage.
But whether it’s Alpina’s schnitzel, Green Hill’s Central Texas-style smoked brisket, or fresh clam chowder at Anker, the core of his philosophy is Swiss simplicity and focusing on fresh ingredients.
“I think the important thing about my background is I’m from Switzerland,” Mueller explains. “Everything in Switzerland is simple and always relies on the ingredients.”
‘I’m not compromising’
For Mueller, every dish begins with sourcing a high-quality ingredient — most likely a local one from the North Fork. It’s all about restraint and letting the ingredients act as a canvas for flavor.
At Anker, Mueller serves char-grilled local oysters with miso, mozzarella, and a shiso vinaigrette, as well as sausage made from local squid and porgy. His burgers at Green Hill and his sausage at Alpina are both made with local meat. He’s currently working on sourcing all of his meat locally.
“I’m not compromising,” Mueller says. “The quality has to be always top-notch. All the things we’re cooking are always simple, straightforward, and very natural,” says Mueller. “It’s like you’re trying not to modify and alter the ingredients too much, you let them be what they are and shine.”
Greenport may seem like worlds away from the Swiss Alps — but the region’s microclimate makes for a farm-rich location that fits his philosophy.
Mueller finds the region’s fresh ingredients make all the difference. “We cook in a way that the ingredients are the stars of the meal, and not the chef,” he says. “If you go and you buy your produce here and everything is so fresh, and it’s organic … It’s amazing,” he notes. “It’s much different from if you buy it through the regular purveyors.”
Seafood in Greenport
Mueller has a reverence for sourcing fresh ingredients of all kinds, using Greenport’s harbor, and maintaining a tight-knit relationship with Southold Fish Market. When Mueller was conceptualizing Anker, he was surprised to learn that Greenport didn’t have a restaurant that focused solely on local seafood.
“I talked to the owner of a bed and breakfast, and she said her guests always asked her where to get seafood, and she said, ‘I don’t know what to say. There is no seafood restaurant here in Greenport.’ And so I said, well, maybe that’s what I should do: open a seafood restaurant.”
That reliance on local sourcing, however, comes with a challenge unique to the North Fork: extreme seasonality.
While Mueller finds inspiration in the North Fork’s seasonal ingredients, Greenport’s seasonality and its long winter slow his businesses down.
“You have basically two months of the year where you operate like a normal restaurant,” he says. He explains that he’s busy in July and August. But in June and September, he sees about half as many guests. The rest of the year? Half of even that.
So Mueller has made the hard decision to close Anker entirely for the winter season, as its open-air deck with views of the Peconic is what keeps the restaurant alive. This past winter, he also closed down Green Hill in January and February and reopened it in March. However, he found a way to keep Alpina open year-round. Mueller’s need to pivot during stagnant winters has led to a return to his roots: the opening of a Swiss bakery, Alpina Bakery in Watermill, as well as the production of traditional Swiss sausages.
‘Quality of the food’
Mueller has invested in special machinery to produce authentic Cervelat sausage and St. Galler Bratwurst, which he hopes will keep his team afloat during the slow winter months. “It’s very hard to struggle through the winter. And you have to cut staff, and then when the season starts you have to rehire staff, so it’s not easy to manage that.”
As the weather gets warmer and the North Fork prepares for an influx of summer visitors, Mueller is setting his sights on his upcoming busy season. Despite the cyclical challenges of extreme seasonality, Mueller’s commitment to local ingredients shines through in each of his menus.
“I think the success comes from the quality of the food. You know, no matter what you do, the food has to be great. Because you can do a lot of Instagram and advertising and all kinds of things, but it only works if the people who come to eat with you walk out happy and tell their friends about you,” he says.
“Word of mouth is the only thing that really creates, in my opinion, a successful restaurant.”
Mueller is planning to reopen Anker on May 1st. “It was a difficult winter. It was very cold and very hard, but I think we have a great season ahead of us…I’m very optimistic,” he concludes.