Category: Under Construction

The Portland City Council meets Monday and as part of the agenda will be reviewing the liquor license applications from several new restaurants:

• Empire – in its new guise as a Chinese restaurant, the downstairs of Empire will serve “a menu of traditional Chinese Dim Sum and other authentic dishes” according to letter from the new owner Theresa Chan. The draft menu (page 122) includes items like duck and pan fried duck egg salad, shrimp rice crepes, and foraged conch noodles. Chan plans on using the upstairs as a live music venue and as a space for private events. Chan is hoping to open in May.
  Fun history facts: from 1916 to 1953 a Chinese restaurant called Empire operated in the same building. Portland’s very first Chinese restaurant opened in 1880.
• Boone’s Fish House & Oyster Room – this will be Harding Lee Smith’s fourth restaurant. The draft menu (page 154) includes traditional seafood dishes, a “Snow Island Extreme Lobster Bake”, as well as a selection of oysters “from here and away”.  Smith is hoping to open in June.
  Fun history fact: Boone’s Restaurant operated in this space on Custom House Wharf for more than a century from 1898 to early in the 21st  Century.
• Sypp – Thomas Henderson is opening an “upscale wine/martini bar” at 345 Fore Street in the space most recently occupied by Sebastian’s. The menu is still being worked on but a brief draft menu (page 182) lists “assorted cheese and cracker plates”, olive plate, tuna tartar, antipasto plate. Henderson hopes to open in May.
  Fun history fact: Sypp will be loocated in Boothby Square which was named for Colonel Frederick E. Boothby.

For details on all the food businesses under development in Portland see the Under Construction List.

Krista Kern Desjarlais, chef/owner of Bresca, is working on a new venture which she plans on calling Bresca and the Honey Bee. This week she closed on the purchase of Outlet Beach on Sabbathday Lake in the town of New Gloucester. The property includes docks, boat rentals, a beach and a snack shack (in operation since 1929) which she’ll be converting into her new eatery.

Bresca and the Honey Bee will be open 7 days a week from Memorial Day straight through to Labor Day. The menu “will be picnic inspired with a focus on pastry and ice cream with hamburgers, hotdogs, pizza, salads and snacks.”

I’ve always been a big fan of Bresca and look forward to visiting Krista’s new venture. A trip (or two or three) to New Gloucester this summer are going to be on my calendar.

Portland Hunt & Alpine Club (website, Facebook, Twitter) has leased 75 Market Street, the former location of Simply Home, as the spot for their new craft cocktail bar. The owners have been search high and low for just the right location even before they initially shared plans for the new bar back in November. You’ll be able to get wander amongst the bars at The Grill Room, Sonny’s and the Hunt & Alpine Club without leaving sight of Post Office Park.

The plans for the space include room for about 50 people in the main bar area with room for additional 10-12 in the private Lodge Members room. Owners Briana and Andrew Volk anticipate opening sometime in mid-Summer. If you just can’t wait that long, consider buying a ticket to the Not So Hush Hush cocktail event they’re holding this Thursday in conjunction with Eventide.

 

According to a report from Maine a la Carte, Dishcrawl Tours (website, Twitter) is setting up a service in Portland and plans on starting tours in early May.

“At the first three restaurants, they get a trio of smaller-sized foods,” says Mary Soule, the Portland Dishcrawl “ambassador” who will be leading the tours. “And while they’re eating, hopefully the chef or at least the owner will come out and talk to people about the food and about the restaurant, the background and history of it. So instead of just sampling the food that the restaurant has to offer, it’s about really building a community with the locals and the chefs in their own towns.”

Portland’s food tour options have expanded quite a bit in the last year. In addition to Dishcrawl, you now can also choose from: Maine Foodie Tours, Wine Wise, The Maine Brew Bus, Maine Beer Tours and Maine Cocktail Tours.

Maine a la Carte interviewed Karl Deuben and Bill Leavy about the new food truck venture they have in development.

The menu will also include a series of daily breakfast and lunch rice bowl offerings. The rice bowls could have a Japanese flair, or have a southern twist – they’ll reflect a lot of different international and regional cuisines.

“The bowls would be a nice option for us to come up with a daily special or utilize the offcuts we can get from local farms and be able to do something a little bit different in a bowl format,” Deuben said.

According to the West End News, Johnny Robinson is planning to open Longfellow’s Attic, sharing the space currently occupied by The Frame Shop in Longfellow Square.

Robinson is best known as the original owner of Hugo’s which he sold Hugo’s to Rob Evans in 2000. He also ran Finch’s/Johnny’s Bistro in Falmouth.

According to a report in the Press Herald real estate section, Coffee by Design has bought a 44,000 square foot building in East Bayside where they plan on housing their roasting operation and “will feature a coffee bar training center, a public cupping and tasting bar, and a showroom for residential and commercial coffee equipment sales.” According to the article they’ll also be offering public tours of the facility.

The article is not, as far as I can tell, available online.

Portland’s food truck ordinance passed late last summer. 2013 will be the first full season for trucks to hit the streets and there will be a handful of vendors in the freshmen class.

One that I’m especially looking forward to is being developed by Karl Deuben and Bill Leavy, a pair of of chefs who have some serious fine dining credits on their resume. Deuben has worked at Alinea in Chicago, Hugo’s and Miyake. Leavy’s resume includes time in the kitchen at Back Bay Grill, Hugo’s and Miyake. You may also recall that Karl was the guest chef for last October’s Pocket Brunch at Broadturn Farm.

They’re in the process of renovating a food truck for a mid-May launch. The truck will be located in East Bayside on Anderson Street, near Tandem Coffee and Bunker Brewing. This new venture will give them an opportunity to apply all the skills they’ve developed in their fine dining careers in a more casual setting and format.

The business name is SmallAxe but the name for the truck itself is still TBD. Karl and Bill are working with The Brand Company, Maine magazine’s consulting division of branding, logo, etc.

As reported back in November, Miyake plans on reopening Food Factory Miyake at their original spot, 129 Spring Street, serving “Japanese comfort food”. The City Council is reviewing their liquor license application Monday and that means we get a peak at the draft menu (see page 67). It consists a mix of small plates (hijiki umani, shrimp with wakame sunomono, etc.) and a small list of entrees (pork with koji salt marinade, braised mackerel with ginger miso, etc.).

The liquor license application would seem to indicate that the new FFM will not be BYOB. The restaurant is likely to open sometime in July.