#68: Grab Fried Chicken From Salamander's in Greenport

Move over Colonel Sanders, Claudia Helinski at Salamander’s in Greenport has fried-chicken people travel far and wide for.

This self-taught chef’s fried chicken has landed her on the pages of Bon Appetite, Food & Wine, and Newsday. Last year Top Chef’s Tom Colicchio penned an article for Travel + Leisure magazine citing Salamander’s as one of his favorite places.

Helinski’s shop is a mixture of general store, catering business and takeout place. In the summer months, customers sit at tables in the front of the store and enjoy many of her homemade dishes. She said her typical customer is very knowledgeable about food. She sells all her ingredients in the store, including many hard-to-find and exotic items from Asia. Her staff hand packages exotic grains including varieties of lentils, couscous and even bamboo rice.

She said Salamander's has become a destination for foodies from all over Long Island and New York because of her eclectic mix of products. During the winter, Helinski travels through Thailand and Asia and always has her eye on new products and ingredients for the store.

Helinski makes her own salads and soups. She said she makes her own stock and has between 30 and 40 varieties of soup on hand either in the freezer or fresh-made. Her shop also stocks a variety of vegetarian soups and salads, even carrying a vegan non-dairy frozen desert made by Steve’s Ice Cream in Holbrook.

“I buy everything locally that I positively can get. I love and admire them all,” Helinski said.

Plans are already under way for the busy holiday season and she’s busy writing her Thanksgiving menu. Salamander’s does a “huge” business at Thanksgiving,  selling D’Artagnan Amish Organic Turkeys and all the traditional sides and pies her customers are looking for.

At Christmas, the staff at Salamander’s prepares cookie platters. All cookies are hand painted in non-traditional colors by Helinski and her staff.

While she has a variety of foods in the store, she acknowledges 25 percent of her business is the fried chicken.

“We cut our own chickens, brine them for 24 hours and bread them. We may sell up to 2,500 pounds of chicken in a week,” she said.

Business has been up over the last two years and Helinski credits the internet for her surge in business. Salamander’s does not have its own website as yet, but she said people spread the word about her store online.

“People are writing about me online. It has increased my business tremendously,” she said.

Salamander’s will be open through Dec. 31. Helinski closes the store from Jan. 1 through the end of March, and reopens in April. For more information, or to place an order, call 631-477-3711.