Sunday, July 13th

You know you’ve got buckets of cash if you’re having dinner Sunday night in the Hamptons. (Well, either that or you’re unemployed, don’t have to be anywhere Monday morning, and you’re sleeping in your car and eating Dinty Moore from the can.) Nick & Toni’s celebrates its 20th anniversary in East Hampton with a “Great Chefs Dinner” to benefit the Hamptons’ Hayground School. Nick & Toni executive chef Joe Realmuto pronounced himself thrilled with “the whole lineup” of guest chefs. “This year they wanted to tie it into the Hamptons because the Hayground school is in the Hamptons, a lot of our supporters are in the Hamptons.” Among the chefs helping to feed the charitable masses are “Larry Forgione and Jonathan Waxman, two of the founding fathers of cuisine in New York,” said Mr. Realmuto. “Alfred [Portale], who has been at Gotham [Bar & Grill] for 20 years; [Le Bernardin’s] Eric Ripert, everybody just loves what he does; Tom Colicchio of Craft is just spectacular, and now he’s gone so far with this Top Chef thing, which is really nice.” Mr. Realmuto said that he was initially worried about “all these great chefs coming in, their egos, who’s serving what, how it’s going to get out of the kitchen; I thought, ‘This is going to be a complete disaster.’” Not so! “It’s turned out to be this camaraderie thing, everyone just going with the flow and having a really good time.” It helps that many of the chefs are Nick & Toni’s regulars: “Alfred is in there, he’s got a home in the Hamptons, he’s been a customer forever. Eric is in there, Laurent [Tourondel, of BLT Restaurants] has been in a few times this summer, Tom Colicchio if he’s out here for events, and I believe he might actually have a house in Wainscott or something.” Later, waddle over to the Southampton Cinema, where unstoppable movie maven Peggy Siegal screens the long-awaited Meryl Streep musical Mamma Mia! to benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Attendees include power couples Evelyn and Leonard Lauder and Caryn and Jeff Zucker and—potentially—drumroll, please—La Streep herself.

[Great Chefs Dinner, Nick & Toni’s, 136 North Main Street, East Hampton, 6 p.m., 631-327-0573; Mamma Mia screening, Southampton Cinema, 43 Hill Street, 7 p.m., 212-935-6700, invite only]

mbryan@observer.com