Issues → May/June 2008 → Food →
The Maine Course: Five Portland Chefs
Portland is a thriving city of fine cuisine by talented chefs
by Annie B. Copps
Read about the five Portland chefs below. To download their recipes, click here.
Although I'm a native New Englander, I confess that I hadn't spent much time in Portland, Maine, until the late 1990s. My first real visit was simply to eat at Fore Street restaurant. My foodie friends were raving about chef Sam Hayward's gorgeous food and his beautiful wood-burning ovens and grills. Their praise was prescient. He flashed across the nation's dining galaxy -- and continues to shine there today. In 2004 the James Beard Foundation named him "Best Chef: Northeast."
Needless to say, my experiences at Fore Street didn't disappoint, and I returned to the city again and again, noodling around the narrow cobblestone byways of the Old Port neighborhood and up toward busy Congress Street, discovering stylish fashion and home-goods stores, too-many-to-count art galleries, and all manner of fascinating architecture along the way. I also poked my head into many of the restaurants in this small city and found that Sam's assertive use of locally produced food, from seafood to cheese to poultry to lamb, had spread throughout the community.
Portland's culinary reputation continues to grow nationwide. In 2004, Food & Wine magazine named Hugo's Rob Evans one of "America's Best New Chefs," an honor it bestowed last year on 555's Steve Corry. It's not unusual to talk with people who vacation in Portland just to dine -- the scene is that varied. That good.
Sam Hayward, Fore Street
The plates that come from Sam's kitchen carry strong Mediterranean influences, but the ingredients and simplicity are undeniably coastal Maine. Fore Street's signature dish, for example -- mussels with garlic and almonds -- gives a nod to French and Spanish cuisine, but the orange nuggets of cold-water mussels coaxed from their blue-black shells are all about the briny seas around Coombs Island in Gurnet Strait, where they're harvested by hand.
Fore Street's many-windowed dining room is rustic and minimally decorated, but like the food, it's a well-thought-out operation: comfortable and natural with exposed brick, rich wooden tables, and an open kitchen centered around a wood-burning oven that reaches 800 degrees and a grill that glows from the live flames beneath its grates.
Among the cooks here there's a precisely choreographed hustle -- one that comes from experience, yet, centered around that fiery gleam, somehow evokes a primal dance. It's all part and parcel of dining at Fore Street.
FORE STREET
Entrées: from $19, 288 Fore St., 207-775-2717; forestreet.biz
Rob Evans, Hugo's
Rob Evans is having a good time. After years of cooking gigs that had him bouncing back and forth between Maine and Hawaii, Rob has developed a style and a philosophy that he calls "new American." He uses his French, Italian, and Japanese cooking skills on "foods within the region that work together, while being creative and fun about it. I think about the ingredients, then build from there."
Rob loves New England's changing seasons, but at this time of year he's more than happy to be cooking with fresh, wild greens, which he gets from forager Rick Tibbetts. "The stuff he finds in the wild is more organic than organic," Rob says. "He constantly surprises me with beautiful local ingredients."
Beyond what Rob calls his "responsibility to support the local guys," using indigenous foods is important to him "because it's all part of being in the place you are. If people travel to Portland, I want them to have a Portland experience -- not to try to re-create something from the Napa Valley or Paris or Miami. This is Maine."
HUGO'S
Entrées: from $16 (bar menu); $68 fixed price
88 Middle St.
207-774-8538; hugos.net
Lee Skawinski, Cinque Terre & Vignola
Chef Lee Skawinski and his partner, Dan Kary, are so committed to local foods that they farm most of the produce on their menus themselves. "We support as many local guys as we can, from rabbits to chickens to lamb, because we can, and because it's a better product," Lee explains. "Part of being a cook in our restaurants is to come to the farm and pick. It makes the connection to what we cook more profound." This time of year, Lee says, "I'm like a kid at Christmas, waiting for asparagus and peas. They have a vibrancy that can't be replicated or easily described."
Lee puts the food, not his ego, at the center of the plate. During the off season, he travels to Europe to underscore "the importance of quality ingredients, taste wine, and pick up a few ideas." At Cinque Terre the menu offerings are refined Italian classics; at Vignola, dishes hail from the great Mediterranean wine countries of Italy, Spain, and France.
CINQUE TERRE
Entrees: from $9, 36 Wharf St., 207-347-6154; cinqueterremaine.com
VIGNOLA
Entrées: from $10, 10 Dana St., 207-772-1330; vignolamaine.com
Steve Corry, 555
"We [the kitchen staff] poke around at the farmers' markets and snag what inspires us, what looks good; then we bring it back to the kitchen," says Steve Corry, chef and co-owner (with his wife, Michelle) of 555. "We talk the menu through, and everyone has an opinion. Some are more vocal than others, but the cooks are all passionate and intense. Sometimes it goes through a few renditions before we're all satisfied. Then it makes it to the menu."
Steve and Michelle both spent time in California before settling back among their East Coast roots. That time in Napa codified their respect for local ingredients and their love of fine wines -- both of which are front and center on Steve's menus.
Before opening the doors, Steve was clear about his cooking style and what his operation would be, "but mostly I wanted to make sure that this would be a place for people who live here in Portland -- not just for out-of-towners. We love seeing new faces for certain, but we're also open seven nights a week, no matter the weather."
555
Entrees: from $14.95, 555 Congress St., 207-761-0555; fivefifty-five.com
Krista Kern, Bresca
Most of Krista Kern's prior experience was in desserts, but this woman is a force to be reckoned with, from appetizer to pasta to salad to entrée. Her flavors are bold, but not overwhelming. And her mark is on every dish that leaves Bresca's teeny kitchen doors. "It's like I'm hosting a small dinner party every night," she says. "I don't want to be a big operator right now. I just want to take care of this little space and the people who come here."
Early in Krista's career, she was the sole baker in the kitchen of a large fine-dining establishment, where she produced more than 5,000 pieces of bread and pastry a day, on her own. "I went to New York to get formal training and more experience," she explains. She spent the 1990s cooking and baking her way through New York, France, and Las Vegas, coming home to Maine to do her own thing. With five tables and 20 seats, "it makes sense for me to go to the farmers' markets and local grocers to buy. I could never meet the minimum orders of the large companies, and that's fine -- I'd rather have a relationship with a local producer than an 800 number."
BRESCA
Entrées: from $19, 111 Middle St., 207-772-1004; bresca.org
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