The secret is Peter’s clams

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The restaurants on Freeport’s Miracle Mile recently held a clam chowder cooking competition. Butch Yamali has the first-place trophy won by his restaurant, Hudson’s on the Mile. There’s a little wrinkle here — Hudson’s on the Mile uses the clam chowder recipe from another restaurant in Yamali’s Dover Group, Peter’s Clam Bar. 

Chef Chris Seidl said the secret to his successful soups is the clams. “I order them the night before,” he said, “And the moment the fisherman docks in the morning, they are picked up and brought here. Other restaurants may use a fish purveyor, so their clams are a day or two old. Ours are always fresh off the boat.”

All of Dover’s restaurants; the Coral House in Baldwin, The Sands at the Lido Beach Catering Hall, Malibu Shore Club, Camp Malibu, MaliBlue Oyster Bar, Hudson’s on the Mile and Peter’s use clams from local clam beds just off shore in Nassau County waters.

Yamali recently bought the 75 year old restaurant, but Seidl said Peter’s was know for it’s chowder, so he kept the original Manhattan chowder recipe, and had the previous owners, Peter and Leo Sempepos show him how it was made. “Patience is the key,” he said, “You have to sweat the onions and I use a lot of basil, regular basil.”

For the New England chowder he uses thick cut bacon, not a special flavor, just bacon, “You don’t want to take away from the taste of the clams. And the cream, I use 100 percent heavy cream, a lot of restaurants use 36 percent. It costs more, but it makes a richer soup.”

“Our soup is a staple of the restaurant, people order up to 30 gallons of it a day — in the summer — so it is important to get it right.”

Seidl began his cooking career while attending Mohawk Valley Community College. He began cooking in a little café as a side job and discovered he liked it. “This is fun,” he said, “I discovered then this is what I had to be doing. I was excited to go to work in the morning, to open the kitchen.”

He studied restaurant management at Nassau Community College, then worked at Hemmingway’s in Wantagh, the Babylon Carriage House as chef du cuisine, and at Palmer’s in Farmingdale as executive sous chef before meeting Yamali at Maliblu, and eventually coming to Peter’s.

His favorite meal? “I am a steak man. A bone in rib eye, 32 ounces.”

When he is not cooking Seidl likes to bake. “Baking is just that, precise, breads, desserts, I love it. My best is my focaccia bread. When I worked at Hemmingway’s I made three different focaccia and people would come in just for my bread.”

The Dover Group was founded in 1976, by Butch Yamali, and is now one of the largest hospitality, catering, vending, and ice cream providers in the Metropolitan area.