Category: Openings

The highly anticipated Central Provisions (website, facebook, twitter) opened tonight at 414 Fore Street. The restaurant featueres a diverse menu of small plates and cocktails and also features a strong wine program. The bottom floor facing Wharf Street is a bar and one flight up on Fore Street is the main dining room and open kitchen.

Central Provisions is owned by Chris and Paige Gould. Gould is a Maine native. Most recently he who worked at the Ken Orringer restaurants Coppa and Uni before the couple moved to Portland.

Patrick McDonald has joined the staff as bar manager and Chris Peterman has been hired to head up the wine program. Macdonald has been working at Gingko Blue and Peterman is running the American Sommelier training program in Portland.

For more images from opening night see Maine a la Carte and Active Beer Geek as well as  Instagram photos from Blueberry Files, Sean Wilkinson.

Miyake Diner (facebook) is opening tonight at 129 Spring Street; the location of the original Miyake restaurant.

Miyake Diner is styled  as a Japanese izakaya bar, a small casual space serving sake, beer and a menu of small plates. The opening night menu will feature dishes like:

Okonomiyaki (photo) – $8.50
Japanese style pancake with cabbage, scallion, and Maine shrimp, bacon or both

Niku Tofu– $8.50
Beef braised in soy and mirin with tofu and yam noodles

Kaisen Chawanmushi – $12.50
Custard with lobster, crab, uni, scallop and mitsuba

Egg, Egg, Egg!!! – $10
Deviled egg topped with uni and wasabi tobiko

as well as some more standard Japsnese fare such as edamame, seaweed salad, miso soup, shumai, and sashimi.

Miyake Diner seats 16 people. It will be open daily 6 pm to 1 am. Joe Ricchio is managing the bar, and Small Axe owners Karl Deuben and Bill Leavy are working in the kitchen alongside chef Masa Miyake.

This is the third restaurant in the Miyake family.

Casa Fiesta Mexican Bar & Grill is now open. They’re located at 865 Forest Ave.

Also now open on outer Forest Ave is Aladdin Market at 646 Forest Ave in Woodford’s Corner.

Vinland (website, facebook, twitter)opened tonight. The restaurant is located at 593 Congress St, adjacent to Congress Square Park.

For Friday and Saturday dinner chef/owner David Levi is serving a “$40 three course menu, your choice of starter, main, and dessert” with a full bar. For reservation email info@vinland.me.

Update: See this article from the Huffington Post for more info on Vinland.

Mainely Wraps (website, facebook) will open their Portland cafe at 339 Fore Street in Boothby Square today. This will be the 3rd location for Mainely Wraps which also has shops in Old Orchard Beach and Scarborough. Mainely Wraps was founded by Rich & Naphtali Maynard.

In separate news, Bangor Daily News reporter Kathleen Pierce has tweeted that Daily Greens, will also be opening today in the Public Market House. Presumably this is the much improved name of Azure, the new salad booth that’s been under construction since late August at the Public Market House.

Five Fifty-Five created a beautiful new private dining room on the 3rd floor of their building. The room can be set up in a number of different configurations and seats a maximum of 30-35. A projection screen is available for business presentations.

There are only a handful of private dining rooms in Portland and so this space begins to address that need. Hopefully some of the other restaurants in town also follow Five Fifty-Five’s lead.

For more information on the room contact Sarah Allenby, Five Fifty-Five’s manager of marketing and events at sarah@fivefifty-five.com.

Photo credit: Jeff Roberts Imaging

The Bangor Daily News has posted a report on Otto’s opening of their new restaurant in South Portland.

“This is wicked good,” said City Councilor Linda Cohen, grabbing a butternut squash, ricotta and cranberry slice at the soft opening Monday night.

Judging by the turnout, OTTO’s eighth store, in a renovated garage, and second new shop in two weeks, is in the right place at the right time.

“They wanted us here,” said co-owner Anthony Allen, mingling with customers and handing out free pizza. “It’s nice to be wanted.”

Otto Pizza’s new South Portland location is open tonight serving “Free pizza and $5 beer/wine (cash only)”. They’ll be going into full operation for lunch tomorrow starting at 11am.

SoPo Otto is located at 159 Cottage Rd just across the street from Red’s Dairy Freeze.

The Little Jamaica (facebook) food cart launched last week. The cart is owned by Derrick Anderson.

You can see a full menu online, it includes items like jerk chicken, escovitch fried snapper, curried goat and oxtail.

I came across them over the weekend in Post Office Park (instagram photo). They typically announce where they’ll be each day on their Facebook page.

A new bakery, Mainly Grains Bakers (facebook), opened this past week in South Portland. Mainly Grains is run by Deb and baker Carlos Garcia. Carlos Garcia comes from a family of bakers and its been Carlos Garcia’s ambition to open a shop of his own.

Mainly Grains Bakers sell a range of breads (I recommend the seeded Prairie Bread), danish and turnovers (apple, blueberry, raspberry) and cookies.

The bakery is located at 904 Broadway and they’re open Tuesday through Sunday. They’re open today until 1 pm.