Upcoming Events & Valentine’s List

| Posted in Events

Monday – The Roma Cafe is holding a 4-course Italian wine dinner.

Tuesday – The Portland Symphony is partnering with the Hunt and Alpine Club on the latest edition of Symphony & Spirits; the program “designed for music lovers aged 21-39” a $25 tickets gets you access to a pre-concert happy hour at Hunt + Alpine, a signature cocktail and a seat at the “Beethoven’s 5th” concert that evening.

February 7 – Food Coma and Oak & Ember are serving a collaboration dinner with a menu focused on Japanese and Norther Chinese cuisine with special sake, beer and Japanese inspired cocktails available.

February 10 – The Portland On Tap beer festival is taking place at the Cross Insurance Arena. Flanagan’s Farm in Buxton will be holding a Supper Club dinner featuring chef Krista Kern Desjarlais from Bresca and The Purple House.

Valentine’s Day – we’ll be sharing V-Day specials here as restaurants announce them. Please let us know if you see someplace missing. Valentine’s Day falls on a Wednesday this year.

  • Alto Terrace – will be serving a 5-course dinner for $85 per person.
  • Black Goat Test Kitchen (Warren) – will be serving a 4-course dinner.
  • Evo Kitchen + Bar – will be serving a 5-course tasting menu for $125 per person. Reservations go live Tuesday.
  • Helm – will be serving a 3-course dinner for $65 per person.
  • Ida’s (Waldoboro) – the wine bar at The Waldoboro Inn in collaboration with The Crooked Spoon is serving a Valentine’s Day dinner for $60 per person.
  • Isa Bistro – will be serving a 3-course dinner (see menu) for $110 per person.
  • Knotted Apron – will be serving a 4-course dinner with champagne and optional wine pairings for $120 per person.
  • Locally Sauced (Yarmouth) – is teaming up with Battery Steele Brewing on a 5-course dinner for $100 per person.
  • Love at First Bite – is offering a variety of Valentine’s Day treats including chocolate dipped strawberries.
  • Miller’s Table – will be serving a 5-course dinner for $85 per person.
  • Mr. Tuna – has a selection of three Valentine’s Day takeout sushi boxes.
  • Nina June (Rockport) – will be serving a 5-course dinner for $100 per person.
  • Noble Kitchen + Bar (Brunswick) – will be serving a 6-course dinner with optional wine pairings for $115 per person.
  • Novare Res – is serving a 3-course “Belgian Bolognese” dinner with 2 Belgian beers for $60 per person.
  • Ore Nell’s North (Biddeford) – is serving a 3-course dinner with a complimentary glass of bubbly for $49.99 per person.
  • The Alna Store (Alna) – will be serving a 5-course with optional pairings for $95 per person.
  • Thistle & Grouse – will be serving a 3-course dinner for $90 per person with optional wine pairings.
  • Twelve – will be serving a 4-course French-inspired dinner.
  • Wander at Longwoods (Cumberland) – will be serving a 4-course dinner for $100 person.
  • Wayside Tavern – will be serving a Roman-inspired dinner for $90 per person with optional wine pairings.
  • Woodford F&B – will be open serving their regular menu augmented with some Valentine’s Day specials.
  • Other Options – While we’re waiting for details, check for open reservations on February 14th via OpenTable and Resy.

February 18 – Flanagan’s Farm in Buxton will be holding a Supper Club dinner featuring chefs Ilma Lopez and Damian Sansonetti from Chaval and Devin Finigan from Aragosta.

February 21 – A West African Culinary Workshop and Dinner is taking place in Brunswick in collaboration with Jordan Benissan the chef/owner of Me Lon Togo in Rockland.

February 22-24 – The Inn by the Sea is holding their annual Ice Bar and Seafood Celebration.

February 23 – Deryck Todd will be leading a mixology class at Bow Street.

February 27 – Chef Sam Hayward will be participating in a Maine Voices Live event organized by the Press Herald.

March 1-12 – The 16th Annual Maine Restaurant Week is taking place.

March 28 – Ballast will be hosting a murder mystery dinner.

April 3 – The Beard Foundation will release the 2024 list of restaurant and chef awards nominees. There are 10 semifinalists from Maine this year.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Edelweiss & Tres Leches

| Posted in Openings

Two new establishments have recently opened in the Portland area:

Edelweiss (website, instagram) opened their new shop over the weekend. Located at 5 Alfred Street in Biddeford the pastry shop is selling a range of croissants and specialty pastries (upper right) and serving Time & Tide coffee. They’ll initially be open Friday, 7 – 2 and weekends 8 – 2.

Tres Leches Cakes Flor (facebook, instagram) has moved into the former Taytene space (upper left) at 863 Broadway in South Portland. Owner Flor Contreras is selling a range of cakes and other desserts as well as a menu (see below) of tortas, tacos, quesadillas and other savory dishes. Tres Leches is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 am – 8 pm, and Sundays 9 am – 2 pm.

Maine Food & Dining News: Bangor, Van Buren, Skowhegan, Milo, Brunswick, Alna, Searsport, 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 on what’s going on:

  • Ana “Betty” Guzman has leased space at 1012 Stillwater Ave in Bangor where she plans to open Betty’s Ice Cream. Guzman hopes to have Betty’s open by early March. Guzman hails from Degollado, Mexico and her menu will feature Mexican-style ice cream.
  • The Northern Maine Kolache Co. (facebook, instagram) is set to open this Saturday in Van Buren in Aroostook County. Owner Donita Ayotte plans to specialize in preparing Kolaches filled with savory and sweet ingredients.
  • The Brick House Kitchen (facebook, instagram) in Skowhegan recently reopened under the ownership of Sarah Dore and Alex Wyman. The restaurant is open for lunch 6 days a week and plans are in the works to add a brunch service.
  • Three of the 2024 Beard Awards semifinalists from Maine are located outside of Portland in Milo, Brunswick and Alna.
  • Amandine (instagram) opened for business on Thursday. The Searsport bakery is is selling breads, custom cakes, and other baked good including Kürtőskalács a Hungarian pastry. Ladonna Bruce is the head baker for Amandine. They’ll be open Monday through Saturday, 10 am – 4 pm.
  • The Don’s Lunch food truck is opening a restaurant in the former River’s Edge Deli site in Westbrook. Owner Craig Bernier hopes to open later this winter or in early spring.
  • The Kickstarter campaign to help purchase S. Fernald’s Country Store in Damariscotta has so far raised $31k of their $35k goal.

2024 Beard Awards Semifinalists

| Posted in Reviews, Maine

The list of semifinalists for the 2024 James Beard Foundation Awards was just released. There are 10 semifinal nominees from Maine:

The final list of nominees (5 per category) will be released April 3rd, and the awards ceremony will take place on Monday June 10th in Chicago.

Related information:

Don’s Lunch in Westbrook

| Posted in Under Construction

Former Westbrook food truck Don’s Lunch (facebook) is relaunching as a brick and mortar restaurant. Owner Craig Bernier is taking over the former River’s Edge Deli location at 616 Main Street. The new Don’s Lunch will be open for breakfast and lunch serving the River’s Edge breakfast menu and the classic menu from the Don’s food truck for lunch. Bernier expects to open at 6 am, 6 days a week.

Bernier has started renovations to the kitchen and dining area and until those are closer to completion an opening date is still TBD. When it does, Don’s will have counter service with both indoor and outdoor seating. Bernier is adding a takeout window that faces out onto the restaurant’s deck.

River’s Edge Deli recently closed upon the retirement of its owner Steve Lampron.

Upcoming Events & Valentine’s List

| Posted in Events

Wednesday – Chaval is holding 5-course vegan wine dinner.

Thursday – Oak & Ember is holding a 4-course Sicilian wine dinner. The SMCC Culinary Arts program is kicking off this season’s lunch program.

Saturday – Flanagan’s Farm in Buxton will be holding a Supper Club dinner featuring chef Christian Hayes from The Garrison.

January 29 – The Roma Cafe is holding a 4-course Italian wine dinner.

January 30 – The Portland Symphony is partnering with the Hunt and Alpine Club on the latest edition of Symphony & Spirits; the program “designed for music lovers aged 21-39” a $25 tickets gets you access to a pre-concert happy hour at Hunt + Alpine, a signature cocktail and a seat at the “Beethoven’s 5th” concert that evening.

February 10 – The Portland On Tap beer festival is taking place at the Cross Insurance Arena. Flanagan’s Farm in Buxton will be holding a Supper Club dinner featuring chef Krista Kern Desjarlais from Bresca and The Purple House.

Valentine’s Day – we’ll be sharing V-Day specials here as restaurants announce them. Please let us know if you see someplace missing. Valentine’s Day falls on a Wednesday this year.

  • Alto Terrace – will be serving a 5-course dinner for $85 per person.
  • Evo Kitchen + Bar – will be serving a 5-course tasting menu for $125 per person. Reservations go live Tuesday.
  • Helm – will be serving a 3-course dinner for $65 per person.
  • Ida’s (Waldoboro) – the wine bar at The Waldoboro Inn in collaboration with The Crooked Spoon is serving a Valentine’s Day dinner for $60 per person.
  • Isa Bistro – will be serving a 3-course dinner (see menu) for $110 per person.
  • Knotted Apron – will be serving a 4-course dinner with champagne and optional wine pairings for $120 per person.
  • Locally Sauced (Yarmouth) – is teaming up with Battery Steele Brewing on a 5-course dinner for $100 per person.
  • Love at First Bite – is offering a variety of Valentine’s Day treats including chocolate dipped strawberries.
  • Miller’s Table – will be serving a 5-course dinner for $85 per person.
  • Mr. Tuna – has a selection of three Valentine’s Day takeout sushi boxes.
  • Nina June (Rockport) – will be serving a 5-course dinner for $100 per person.
  • Noble Kitchen + Bar (Brunswick) – will be serving a 6-course dinner with optional wine pairings for $115 per person.
  • Ore Nell’s North (Biddeford) – is serving a 3-course dinner with a complimentary glass of bubbly for $49.99 per person.
  • The Alna Store (Alna) – will be serving a 5-course with optional pairings for $95 per person.
  • Thistle & Grouse – will be serving a 3-course dinner for $90 per person with optional wine pairings.
  • Twelve – will be serving a 4-course French-inspired dinner.
  • Wander at Longwoods (Cumberland) – will be serving a 4-course dinner for $100 person.
  • Wayside Tavern – will be serving a Roman-inspired dinner for $90 per person with optional wine pairings.
  • Woodford F&B – will be open serving their regular menu augmented with some Valentine’s Day specials.
  • Other Options – While we’re waiting for details, check for open reservations on February 14th via OpenTable and Resy.

February 18 – Flanagan’s Farm in Buxton will be holding a Supper Club dinner featuring chefs Ilma Lopez and Damian Sansonetti from Chaval and Devin Finigan from Aragosta.

February 21 – A West African Culinary Workshop and Dinner is taking place in Brunswick in collaboration with Jordan Benissan the chef/owner of Me Lon Togo in Rockland.

February 22-24 – The Inn by the Sea is holding their annual Ice Bar and Seafood Celebration.

March 1-12 – The 16th Annual Maine Restaurant Week is taking place.

March 28 – Ballast will be hosting a murder mystery 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.

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

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.

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

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

My Kitchen Their Table: Barak Olins

| Posted in People, My Kitchen Their Table

Welcome to the January 2024 edition of My Kitchen, Their Table, an interview series with the chefs and culinary professionals who work hard to satisfy our small city’s big appetite. This month we’re featuring an interview with Barak Olins the founder and head baker of ZUbakery. Visit our instagram on next week, to see Barak and his team at work at the bakery.

A boat builder turned bread maker, Barak Olins is a master of craftsmanship and tradition. Originally from Tennessee, he moved to Rockport, Maine, to build boats. Eventually, his love affair with cooking became his profession when he and two partners opened Cafe Uffa (now the location of El Corazon in Longfellow Square), in 1995. In their quest to prepare everything from scratch, his journey in breadmaking took off.

In 2000, Olins launched ZUbakery out of a barn in Freeport equipped with a hand built woodfired oven and age-old techniques. From milling locally-grown grains to proofing at ambient temperature, his bread is as traditional as it gets. “I’m not an innovator. I’m not trying to reinvent bread. I don’t believe I can create a loaf of bread better than those before me,” he humbly explains.

For over two decades, he sold exclusively at farmer’s markets in Brunswick. On Fridays, the day before a market, he would sleep in the barn on a cot after he loaded the final batch of bread into the oven. The following day, after only a few hours of sleep, he would haul nearly 180 pastries and 300 loaves of bread to the market. “It was romantic for years, and then I said, I can’t do this anymore,” he says, laughing.

In 2022, Olins went from barn to boulangerie when he took over a space at 81 Clark Street in Portland’s West End. After many months of renovations, he opened the doors on October 21st, 2022. Inspired by a 1930s French bakery, it is chic, minimalist, and intentional. The 650-square-foot space has an open kitchen separated from the retail area by a narrow marble countertop and paned window — a cozy spot to watch your daily bread being made. Like all things Olins, there is beauty in its simplicity and practicality — from the wood shelves piled high with willow baking baskets to the proofing trough and work tables he built himself.

Unlike most bakeries, the counter at ZUbakery is far from fully stocked at the time of opening. Rather, Olins and his small, talented crew bake throughout the day. His menu, or rather schedule, begins at 9 a.m. with pastries served alongside coffee and tea. From late morning to early afternoon, they load the shelves with bread. Then, pizzettes and focaccia hit the counter until close at 5 p.m. This schedule allows the baking crew to start their day at a reasonable hour (if you consider 5 a.m. reasonable) and allows you to get an exceptionally fresh, even warm loaf of bread. Also for sale are housemade biscotti and granola, local honey, olive oil, ceramics made by Olins’ wife, Mimi, and a small selection of thoughtfully sourced wine.

Continue reading to learn more about Olins’ “unfussy utilitarian” approach to baking, where he’s ordering takeout from, and which brewery you’re most likely to find him at.

THE INTERVIEW

AR: How would you describe your baking style?
BO: I don’t make bread with a lot of other things in them. They’re fairly simple and rustic. I’m really interested in reclaiming that word because now you can go to a grocery store and buy artisanal, rustic bread, but that word rustic really means something. To me, it means handmade, regional, unfussy, and utilitarian.

AR: Why do you mill grains in-house?
BO: For one, it gives me the opportunity to work directly with the farmer. Also, flour loses flavor and oxidizes if it sits around for a long time. Eventually, the germ oil can go rancid. Freshly milled flour adds a layer of flavor. The range of offerings at my bakery is relatively small, and I want everything I do to be done as well as possible, so having control over the wheat that I use and the flour that I have is really important.

AR: What is your favorite pastry to make?
BO: I just love scones. I think they’re so good. I make an Irish scone with currants. They’re really simple. The trick is how you handle it. You don’t want to overwork the dough.

AR: What about your favorite bread?
BO: I make one called pavé. That’s French for a paving stone. It’s so good for dipping in olive oil or with a salad. The loaf is large, somewhat rectangular, and slightly flat. I usually make it with buckwheat, whole wheat, and white flour.

AR: What are the ingredients in pavé?
BO: Flour, water, salt, and starter. A bread recipe is more accurately a baker’s schedule. It’s not so much the ingredients as it is your technique of working the dough, how long you’re fermenting it, how you shape the loaf, and, of course, the wheat you’re using. One schedule that works for many bakers is cold fermentation. Sometimes shaped loaves cold-ferment in a cooler overnight. I don’t do that. My bread, with few exceptions, is always fermented at ambient temperature. Sometimes, I use refrigeration to slow it down, but I aim to do everything at room temperature. I don’t like relying that much on technology, and I like being more in touch with the dough as it’s going along.

AR: What is one of your favorite dishes in Portland?
BO: At Yosaku, they still make soba noodles in-house daily. For me, a bowl of cold soba noodles with dashi, wasabi, and grated daikon is magical. It’s not innovative. It’s just perfect. There’s no flavor that doesn’t need to be there. And it’s beautifully presented. That’s my dish.

AR: What is one of your go-to spots in Portland?
BO: I really love Bahn Appetit, the little takeout spot on Cumberland Avenue. They’re excellent. Everything I’ve had there is delicious. The Bahn mi is really good. I love honest, straightforward cooking. I don’t need to be surprised by combinations.

AR: Where did you eat one of your most memorable meals?
BO: One of my favorite dinners ever was at Bresca. At the time, I didn’t know who Krista Kern Desjarlais was. My wife and I sat at the bar looking into the kitchen. It was a sweet, cozy place with a small menu. Everything was delicious — the food, the wine. We were totally in love with it.

AR: Where do you go for a drink?
BO: I love Bunker Brewing. It’s a little off the beaten path. It’s on the backside of a building with some picnic tables. It reminds me of my favorite parts of what Portland was like twenty years ago. And the beer is so good. I’m not a big cloudy IPA drinker. I like their Machine Pilz and Salad Daze IPL. The one that transports me to an Irish or English-style bitter is the Chickadee nitro beer.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Previous editions of My Kitchen Their Table have featured Courtney Loreg, Chad Conley  Atsuko Fujimoto, Matt Ginn, Jordan Rubin, Cara Stadler, Thomas Takashi Cooke, Ilma Lopez, Bowman Brown, Brian Catapang, Kelly Nelson, Lee Farrington & Bryna Gootkind, Jake and Raquel Stevens, Tina Cromwell, Nathaniel Meiklejohn, Evan Atwell, and Mimi Weissenborn.

The My Kitchen Their Table series is brought to life by food writer Angela Andre Roberts, and the generous sponsorship by Evergreen Credit Union and The Boulos Company.

Solo Cucina Market Closing Sunday

| Posted in Closings

The owners of the Solo Cucina Market have announced that this Sunday will be the market’s last day in business. The owners had announced in in November that they were seeking a buyer for the market.

Despite our most sincere efforts and fervent hopes, we have been unable to arrange a sale of the market to a buyer who will continue the concept. We are deeply grateful for your ongoing patronage and good cheer since the news of our closure came out, and your optimism has buoyed us to this point—but sadly these last few rogue waves have left us without a path forward.

The market opened on March 25, 2020. Solo Cucina is part of a family of businesses that also include Solo Italiano in Portland and Solo Pane e Pasticceria in Bath.