2024 Beard Awards Nominees from Maine

| Posted in Reviews, Maine

UPDATE: you can watch the awards presentation via this Youtube Livestream.

The list of final nominees for the 2024 James Beard Foundation Awards season has been released. 4 of the 10 chef and restaurant semifinalist announced in January are 2024 nominees. Congratulations to:

  • Outstanding Bakery – ZU Bakery, Portland (Barak Olins, bottom right photo)
  • Outstanding Hospitality – Woodford Food & Beverage, Portland (upper left photo)
  • Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker – Atsuko Fujimoto, Norimoto Bakery in Portland (bottom left photo)
  • Best Chef: Northeast – Jake Stevens, Leeward (upper right photo)

The 2024 award winners will be announced on Monday June 10th in Chicago.

Related information:

Model T Coffee on Congress Street

| Posted in Under Construction

The owners of the Bru-Thru Coffee Shack (facebook, instagram), a drive through coffee shop in Cumberland, are taking over the former Coffee by Design location on Congress Street where they plan to open a new coffee shop called the Model T Coffee Company (facebook, instagram).

Matthew and Stephanie Morgan and their family will be serving Coffee by Design coffee, donuts from Tony’s Donuts as well as baked goods from some other local producers. The full food menu is still under development. Renovations are underway with plans to give Model T a vintage vibe. The Morgans hope to launch the cafe sometime in April.

Food & Wine: Best Food City, Best Restaurants, Best Bakeries

| Posted in Reviews

Food & Wine has released the winners of their Global Tastemakers Awards. Maine is recognized in three of the award categories:

Portland is on the list of the 10 Top US Cities for Food and Drinks.

Aragosta on Deer Isle is on the list of the Top 20 Restaurants in the US.

Portland is on the list of the 10 Top US Cities for Bakeries.

How the award winners are selected:

This year, we asked more than 180 food and travel journalists from across the globe to nominate their favorite restaurants, bars, bakeries, markets, cities, hotels, airports, airlines, and cruises around the world. We then entrusted that feedback to an expert panel of judges to rank each category’s winners. In many categories, we’ve included a Plus One, hand-selected by our expert panel, to shout out more culinary destinations we don’t want our readers to miss.

Upcoming Food & Dining Events

| Posted in Events

Wednesday – The Beard Foundation will release the 2024 list of restaurant and chef awards nominees. There are 10 semifinalists from Maine this year.

Friday – It’s the grand opening of Botanically Curious.

April 9 – The Maine Center for Entrepreneurs is holding a FoodTech Maine Showcase at USM. Jean Christophe Rusatira, founder of Umuko Coffee Importers, will be speaking at Coffee by Design on Diamond Street.

April 16 – Award-winning chef and restaurant owner Marilou Ranta from The Quarry in Monson will be taking part in a Maine Voices Live interview at One Longfellow Square. Tickets are now on sale.

April 17 – Wayside Tavern is holding an Alpine Food & Wine Dinner.

April 19-28 – The 6th annual Maine Seaweed Week is taking place.

April 20 – It’s the first day of the summer session of the Portland Farmers’ Market. The market will be in Deering Oaks Park on Wednesdays and Saturdays (7 am – 1 pm).

April 27 – Portland Chowderfest is taking place.

April 28 – The Casco Bay Chef’s Association is holding their 2024 annual dinner.

April 29 – The Good Food Awards winners will be announced. Eight Maine food producers are finalists in the 2024 Good Food awards program.

May 11 – CiderFeast, an “all-inclusive tasting event celebrates craft ciders from some of the top cider makers in New England and beyond” is taking place.

May 18 – The Maine Wild Wine Fest is taking place in Freeport.

May 19 – Fork Food Lab and Mayo Street Arts are collaborating to hold the Taste of Nations Food Festival.

June 10-16 – Portland Wine Week is taking place.

June 17 – The 3rd Annual ChopTails Competition will be taking place at Batson River.

June 22 – The Great Falls Brewfest is taking place in Lewiston.

June 26 – Secret Supper (instagram) is holding a dinner in the Portland area.

June 29 – The 3rd Annual Mast Landing Wavy Days Festival is taking place.

July 25/26 – The Kneading Conference is taking place in Skowhegan.

August 30 – September 1 – Maine Apple Camp is taking place.

September 20-22 – The Common Ground Fair will be taking place.

Vin Santo in Biddeford

| Posted in Under Construction

Mainebiz reports that the owners of The Dunn Bar in Biddeford have leased the space adjacent to their Washington Street restaurant. In the new space at 12 Washington Street Doug Darby, Ciel Caldwell and Angela Napolitano will be opening an Italian restaurant called Vin Santo.

“Doug is Irish, and his dream was to open an Irish pub,” said ” said Napolitano. “Ciel is Italian, and I am Italian. We just started talking and thought this space would be perfect for branching out and doing Italian. This has been in the works for the past two months. We wanted to expand into the space to have one team and one entity. I can share my staff. We have a joint kitchen, and now it’s just pulling the pieces together to make it all work as one.

12 Washington Street in Biddeford was formerly occupied by Sublime Taco. The taco restaurant recently announced they’re taking over operation of the kitchen at Mick’s Sports Bar in Biddeford.

According to the Mainebiz article, Vin Santo is slated to open in mid to late April.

Maine Food & Dining News: Springvale, Brunswick, Windham, Limerick, New Gloucester, Machias, Biddeford, Westbrook, Damariscotta

| Posted in Maine

New food and dining developments are taking place all across Maine. Here are some recent updates to keep you in the know:

  • Downhill Bagel Company (instagram) opened for business yesterday in Springvale. They’re located at 446 Main Street. Owner Billy Nichols and his team are serving a menu (see below) of breakfast and lunch bagel sandwiches as well as weekend options like pastrami on rye. Downhill reopens this week on Saturday; they’ll initially be open Thursday/Friday 8 am – 2 pm, and Saturday/Sunday 9 am – 2 pm.
  • Lil Jam Cookies (website, instagram) recently opened their new bakery in Brunswick. They’re open Wednesday through Saturday 8 am – 4 pm and Sunday 8 am – 2 pm. Lil Jam is located at 146 Maine Street next to Maine Street Bistro.
  • The owners of Ann’s Book Bistro have opened a second restaurant in Damariscotta. Koko’s Sandwich Bar (website, instagram) is located at 603 Main Street. They serve a menu of pressed sandwiches, soups and salads. You can learn more about Koko’s from this recent article in the The Lincoln County News. Koko’s is open daily 11 am – 3 pm.
  • A new restaurant called Cormier’s Dog House (facebook) is under construction in Windham. They’ll be serving “Chicago style hotdogs and more”.
  • Black Tie has published the schedule for their 2024 Graze dinner series which takes place at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester.
  • Gneiss Brewing has announced plans to shut down their brewery. Their last day in business is still to be determined, in the meantime their tasting room in Limerick will be open on Saturdays, noon – 6 pm.
  • Mason’s Brewing will be opening a new location in Machias in the former Bluebird Ranch Family Restaurant space at 78 Main St.
  • Sublime Taco announced that they’ll be taking over the kitchen and menu at Mick’s in Biddeford. Sublime closed their taco shop in downtown Biddeford late last year.
  • Baker/owner Lesa Beck has announced plans to launch Pine Tree Bakery (website, instagram) on April 10th. The bakery is located at 1557 Bridgton Road in Windham.
  • The new Don’s Lunch (facebook) cafe in Westbrook opened on Monday.

An Organic Etrog Orchard

| Posted in Farming

Goronson Farm (website, facebook, instagram) in Scarborough has kicked off a project to farm etrog, a type of citrus which play an important part in celebration of the Jewish festival of Sukkot.

Citrus trees might not seem a natural fit for Maine weather but owner Maureen Goronson has a lot of experience growing rare fruit. She currently grow a variety of fruit trees that include Chinese Honey Peaches (Shui Mi Tao), French apricots (Paviot), apricots from Iran (Shakarpara), and persimmons.

Goronson plans to build out a new greenhouse and to plant an orchard of 30 etrog trees. The fruit will be a certified-organic and certified-kosher crop. She was prompted to take on this project by a customer who knew of her passion for raising rare fruits. If all goes according to schedule the first crop will be available in 2027. When they reach maturity each of the thirty trees will be able to produce 150-250 fruit. Goronson hopes her orchard will address the lack of a source of kosher organic etrogs.

For more information visit the page on the Goronson website about the project, and support the initiative visit the Go Fund Me page for the project.

Gunnar’s Icelandic Hot Dogs

| Posted in Under Construction

A new business called Gunnar’s Icelandic Hot Dogs (instagram) is taking a new twist on the food cart by serving a locally made version of an Icelandic hot dog.

Since Icelandic hot dogs aren’t exported to the US, owner Pete Grebowski is working with The Sausage Kitchen in Lisbon Falls to produce a version of them here in Maine. They’ll be primarily made with ground lamb with some beef and pork mixed in. A loaded Icelandic hot dog is topped with a remoulade, sweet brown mustard, and type of ketchup sweetened with apples instead of sugar as well as crispy fried onions and finely diced raw red onions on a brioche bun. The full Gunnar’s menu is still under development.

Grebowski hopes to launch his food cart June 1st and plans to locate the cart at the corner of Congress Square Park. He plans to be in operation on the weekends and some weeknights, 4;30 to close.

Freedom’s Edge Opening

| Posted in Openings

Freedom’s Edge Cider (website, facebook, instagram) will be holding the grand opening of their new tasting room at 31 Diamond Street in East Bayside on Thursday, April 4th, noon to 8 pm.

The tasting room will serve eleven Freedom’s Edge ciders (see above) on draft as well as can and bottle pours. Also available will be cider cocktails, non-alcoholic drinks, and a draft beer.

The Freedom’s Edge food menu is expected to grow this spring to include cheese plates, charcuterie, olive bowls, mixed nuts and other light snacks. In a collaboration with their 31 Diamond building neighbors, customers will also be able to electronically order from the full Bite Into Maine menu to enjoy at the tasting room.

For the grand opening they will have a fondue option served with bread, apple slices, and brussels sprouts, and other items for dipping into a melted blend of Pineland Farms cheeses including an aged cheddar and a gruyere prepared with Freedom’s Edge cider.

Owners Andrew Kaplan and Ned Ervin have built out a 55-seat tasting room with space for barrel aging and bottle conditioning of their limited release ciders. An additional 35 seats of outdoor seating will be available as warmer weather arrives.

The regular hours for Freedom’s Edge will be Tuesday/Wednesday 2 – 8 pm, Thursday through Saturday noon – 8 pm, and Sunday noon – 6 pm.

31 Diamond Street is also home to Orange Bike Brewing and Bite Into Maine, and is next door to the Three of Strong distillery and tasting room, and Coffee by Design’s roastery and coffee shop.

The wall mural was painted by artists Pat Corrigan.

Mobile Food Pantry

| Posted in General News

The Press Herald reports that the Maine Med food pantry is getting a food truck.

“The idea is to bring free healthy food to people who are food insecure, whether they are unhoused or have a difficult time affording food,” said Barbara Ginley, MaineHealth’s director of community health for Greater Portland. Ginley said some people who need help getting food can’t get to the hospital-run pantry, which is open Thursdays from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at 950 Congress St., the site of the former Greyhound bus station, because they lack transportation or have a medical condition that makes it difficult to stand in line.