Nick & Toni's, A Restaurant in the Hamptons Where Bonnie Is the Word Gary Hovland The Barefoot Contessa declares Bonnie Munshin "the most powerful person in the Hamptons." East Hampton, N.Y. - The most coveted summer property in the Hamptons is not the 12-bedroom $45 million Linden estate in Southampton or the legendary 6,000-square-foot East Hampton house known as Grey Gardens that Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn are offering for rent in June and July for a mere $125,000. It consists of tables No. 20 to 27 in the front room of Nick & Toni's at 136 North Main Street. You cannot own one; these are luxury rentals. They have a discerning landlord who will not let them to just anybody. Her name is Bonnie - Bonnie Munshin, if you have to know, but Bonnie will do. And if you are one of those people who just has to prove that you are a Hamptons Somebody (which is done by sitting at Table 21 on July Fourth weekend), then you'll want to get to know her. You cannot get around her, either. The front-room regular Martha Stewart says she knows if she wants a table, she must go to Bonnie, and when she cannot be accommodated, "No is no," and "you just accept it." Even the mother of Toni Ross (a co-owner with Mark Smith) goes to Bonnie, not her daughter, to arrange weekend reservations. Nick & Toni's does have customers who have no claim to fame, who are satisfied with a reliably excellent meal and do not care a whit where they sit. They are treated plenty well, which is why a local real estate agent is as likely to be a regular as Jimmy Fallon and Alec Baldwin. But for those who actually care, this is not a trifle. For them, being told they are not being seated at the front of the house can be like learning they have been banished to the guest cottage for the night. "I felt like a second-class citizen," sputtered a bespectacled gentleman who had faced the indignity of a back-room table as he made his way out the door during last Saturday's pre-Memorial Day warm-up, passing the prime-seating gauntlet of the real estate titan Harry Macklowe, the celebrity dermatologist Patricia Wexler and the artist Clifford Ross. In true Nick & Toni's fashion, Kirsten Benfield, Bonnie's steadfast lieutenant of 17 years, defended the unhappy diner, saying his complaint was less about his table than the one next to it, which demanded much of his server's attention. It takes finesse to juggle the soothing of such bruised egos; to orchestrate Mr. Fallon's dinner service around his peripatetic hobnobbing (required a few Fridays ago when he was there with Lorne Michaels); and to subtly block occasional autograph seekers and gawkers. Bonnie directs them away with some sly misdirection: "It does look like him, doesn't it?" Then there are those common-enough moments when both halves of a divorce book tables on the same night. Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley claimed joint custody of the restaurant after they split, as did Ron Perelman and Ellen Barkin. This can require a discreet phone call alerting one or the other or both - or, at least, careful seating. Because of her deft hand at doing all of the above, the most gawkable celebrities and Masters of the Universe have developed a fierce loyalty to Bonnie and the restaurant during her 21 years there, keeping it safely atop the East End food chain despite an endless tide of would-be usurpers. This is not hyperbole. Here are just some of the people who either called or wrote to say something laudatory about Bonnie upon hearing this article was in the works: Mr. Michaels ("a good heart"); the chefs Bobby Flay ("a study in consistency"), Eric Ripert ("what you want to see at the door") and Alfred Portale ("an image of calm"); the director Barry Sonnenfeld ("great and smart and witty and funny"); and the artist April Gornik ("discreet, inspiringly elegant"). Mr. Baldwin went so far as to break a self-imposed press blackout to write from his European vacation that "Seeing Bonnie is like finding a lighthouse on a stormy sea." There has been talk that Bonnie is retiring in this, the restaurant's 25th anniversary season. And to some degree she is. She has handed her role as general manager to a young newcomer, Carolyn Papetti, 40, who was chosen after a two-year search. But Bonnie will be on hand on weekends, maintaining her central role on the restaurant's most important two nights. Ina Garten, whom you may know as the Barefoot Contessa, declared her to be "the most powerful person in the Hamptons" for her say over the coveted Saturday seating chart. Such power is not gained easily or without some measure of toughness. Do not let her slight former dancer's frame and kind smile give you the impression she is a pushover.