You Can Buy The Same Tomatoes As Ina Garten At This Hamptons Farm Stand

If there's any location that Ina Garten is most associated with, it's the Hamptons. The celebrity chef got her start in the idyllic seaside enclave of Westhampton Beach where her first Barefoot Contessa store was located, and she calls the East Hamptons home to this day. From the Long Island restaurants where she loves to eat to where she likes to shop and who she sources her local produce from, fans love to learn snippets about her life there — and sometimes she shares them. For example, Garten once gushed about Balsam Farms, the farm stand where she buys her tomatoes. 

Garten highlighted Balsam Farms in a post on Instagram in August 2024, where she shared a picture of a tart she made using tomatoes from the farm. "Balsam Farm in Amagansett has the best tomatoes and I'm obsessed with using them in everything!" she wrote in the caption. But, Garten isn't the only one who loves the stand. Located just outside of Amagansett – a sleepy hamlet known for its rich agricultural community — Balsam Farms has been a local-favorite since it was founded in 2003.

In the two decades it's been in business, Balsam Farms has grown from a tiny one-man show to a huge year-round operation. The owners, Alex Balsam and Ian Calder-Piedmonte, and their team farm 200 acres of fruits, flowers, vegetables, and grains. Garten's beloved heirloom tomatoes are one of its biggest stars, with over 100 varieties on offer every year.

Balsam Farms recommends pairing its tomatoes with a bright and fresh basil pesto, fresh mozzarella, and a sliced baguette. You could also take inspiration from Ina Garten and make an heirloom tomato and ricotta tart. However, if you happen to be in the Hamptons area in late summer, then you also need to get your hands on some of Balsam Farms' world famous corn cobs. The team selects its corn varieties carefully and hand picks each cob daily. At the height of the season, they even serve fire roasted corn from the stand. On any given day around this time of year, the farm could sell up to 4,000 ears of corn — you might even run into Garten there. 

"For me, tomatoes and corn are the taste of summer," she said in the same Instagram post where she gushed about Balsam Farms' tomatoes. A week later, she made another post on Instagram dedicated to East Hampton's corn. "In the summer in East Hampton ... I love to make corn salads, sauteed corn, corn chowder — anything that uses fresh corn! I've loved it ever since I moved out here," she wrote. If you can't make it to Amagansett, Balsam Farms also operates a small market in Montauk — and they ship some jarred tomato products. If you can, however, you should also check out some of the other local stops and restaurants Garten shares on the "Barefoot Contessa" blog.