Category: Openings

Bird & Co. has launched a product line starting with a pair of avocado-based cooking oils.

The Original Taco Oil by Bird & Co is the home cook’s new secret weapon. Made with 100% avocado oil and steeped with whole spices and simple herbs, it was crafted to flavor and elevate pan-fried tortillas for unmatched tacos at home. Beyond taco night, it sizzles as a versatile kitchen staple for braising proteins, grilling veggies, reviving leftovers, and creating vibrant dressings, sauces, and dips..breakfast, lunch, or dinner!

The oils are available in two flavors: Roja made with chipotle, chili, and garlic, and Verde made with cilantro, jalapeño, and lime. They’re available at Bird & Co in Woodfords Corner and online at shopthebirdandco.com.

Oun Lido’s (website, instagram) launched a bar in their second floor dining room last night. They now also offer dinnertime table services with takeout still available from their downstairs ordering counter. The drinks list (see below) includes cocktails like a coconut pandan mojito, cherry negroni and a passionfruit magarita shown above. The bar and table service are available Tuesday through Sunday, 5 – 9 pm (until 10 pm on Friday and Saturday).

The Cambodian restaurant is located at 30 Market Street. They opened for business in the summer of 2024 and received  a 4 star review from the Maine Sunday Telegram later that year as well as appearing on Esquire’s list of the Best New Restaurants of 2024.

Here’s a look at the new drink list. You can see their menu online and some pictures of their food we published last month on instagram.

Alex Wight is launching her new French-inspired wine bar and restaurant Elizabeth (website, instagram) on Friday.  Elizabeth is located at 47 Wharf Street and will be open Tuesday through Saturday, 4 – 10 pm (until 11 pm on Friday and Saturday).

Chefs Duncan Biddulph and Ashley Robinson are serving a menu (see below) that includes dishes like Oeuf Mayo with smoked salmon caviar (center right), Jambon de Bayone (top left) and Halibut en Papillote as well as desserts like the Souffle with salted honey ice cream (bottom left) and a Canelé with apricot, custard and rum. Elizabeth’s beverage consultant, Kevin Denton Rex, has put together a drinks list (see below) of cocktails, French wine by the glass and bottle, nonalcoholic drinks, beer and cider.

The space has been completely redesigned with an 18-seat bar along the right side of the room, banquette seating for 22 along the opposite wall and an eye-catching polished red ceiling.

Wight is the owner of Crown Jewel restaurant on Great Diamond Island which she launched in 2018. She previously ran the influential Flanagan’s Table dinner series in Buxton.

Robinson and Biddulph relocated to Maine from Chicago where Biddulph worked at Lula Cafe, Publican, and was the executive chef at Rootstock and Tortello. Robinson grew up in Cape Elizabeth and after attending Harvard worked in New York and Chicago, notably as the head chef at The Bakery at Fat Rice.

Reservations for Elizabeth can be made on OpenTable.

Y%F Coffee (instagram) is set to open on Friday, March 20th. It’s located in the long vacant ground floor space at the corner of Congress and High Streets. It will initially be open daily, 8 am – 4 pm.

The spacious cafe features counter seating along the windows overlooking Congress Square, a number of tables in the center of the dining room, a pair of group seating areas with comfy large format chairs, and a green tiled service counter at the back of the space.

Y%F is brewing house-roasted coffee from Ethiopia and Mexico and a decaf coffee from Colombia. Owner Yousif Albadri and his team are serving the standard line-up of drip and espresso-based drinks plus specialty beverages like Spanish lattes (sweetened with condensed milk), pistachio lattes and two variations of Turkish coffee. The menu also includes Belgian hot chocolate, a variety of nonalcoholic mojitos, matcha, green and black teas, and Karak tea.

The food options at Y%F include breakfast sandwiches, avocado toast, bagels with cream cheese, and sweet treats like chocolate croissants and pistachio croissants, three flavors of tres leches cake, Dubai cheese cake and Dubai strawberry cups, and a Basque cheesecake.

Supper Club Cocktail Lounge (website, instagram) is scheduled to open on Saturday. The bar and restaurant will be open at 5 pm Thursday through Monday with the kitchen open until 9 pm, and the bar in operation until midnight Thursday through Saturday and until 11 pm on Sunday and Monday nights. It’s located in the former Guitar Grave space at 441 Congress Street nearby Monument Square.

Supper Club is the creation of Jake Bosma with front of house manager Zakk Nix, bar manager Shane Brennan, head chef Lo, and partners Isaac MacDougal, Brecken MacDougal and Zach Myers.

Bosma Shared, “Neighborhood feel is what has always drawn me to my favorite spaces in town and
that’s what I wanted to embody with Supper Club. It’s a place where you can drop in for a cocktail, stay for dinner, and end up closing down the lounge because you ran into friends and lost track of time. We wanted to capture that local affinity Portland already knows and loves and combine it with an ambient cocktail bar.”

The cocktail list (see below) includes drinks like the Nifty Fifty, a 50/50-ish martini made with pear and apple vermouth, sherry and an orange twist, the Automatic Love made with cilantro tequila, guava, fresno chiles and lime, and the Wisco Old Fashioned which is prepared with bourbon, brandy, Diplomatico rum, luxardo and dry curaco. There’s also a trio of nonalcoholic drinks and a small selection of beer and wine. Shown above are The Hare & The Dog and a Golden Negroni.

Chef Lo has put together a menu of bar snacks, apps and entrees, and desserts like the Bitter Greens salad was a full sized dish made with citrus, sesame seeds, cucumbers and sumac, and a delicious entree of Coconut Poached Hake (shown above) which is plated with celery root and cabbage is a coconut and chili broth.

The 2,400 sq ft space can seat up to 54 people. The main dining room features a 12-seat bar and banquette seating along the opposite wall. A lounge area with club chairs and an 8-seat circular booth flank the entrance from Congress Street. A separate area towards the back with lounge seating and its own 6-seat bar will be available for special events, private dinners, and overflow seating on busy nights. There’s also an 8-seat table a little removed from the main dining area for larger parties.

 

A new pop-up series called Set Lunch (instagram) will be starting up in Portland in March. The creation of Elise Schloff and Emma Porter, Set Lunch will serve 3-course lunches and take place  monthly-ish. The meals will be vegetarian—and often vegan—with a gluten free option, and each will explore their “favorite lunch concepts, from Japanese bento and French formules to Soviet canteens and cafeteria restaurants of the American South.”

Schloff shared this about Set Lunch, “I’m excited to be working with Emma because our culinary values and points of view are so complementary. I’ve been looking to work more with savory food and am really into lunch as a meal format and an ambiance. I love taking a moment in the middle of a busy day to luxuriate a bit. I feel most creative when I’m working with some sort of constraints, and I think a set price three-course meal will be a fun container to play with. There’s also just something very charming about a meal served on a tray, which I hope diners appreciate as much as we do.”

And Porter shared this, ” I love the concept of serving a meal that is complete, like you’re a visitor in our theoretical home(s) and this is what we’ve prepared for lunch based on what was available at the market. There is also a communal aspect of eating what everyone else is, too, which feels special as well.”

Porter is the founder of Ways of Bean, and Schloff is the creator of Soymilkmaid.

The first Set Lunch is scheduled to take place on Tuesday March 3rd at Luncheonette. Follow Set Lunch on instagram to hear about future events and see the menu for their first meal when it gets published.

A new cocktail and wine bar called The Marquis (website, instagram) is scheduled to open on Friday. It’s located in the Arts District at 150 Park Street in the space formerly occupied by Sagamore Hill, and will be open daily, 4 – 11 pm and until 1 am on Friday/Saturday.

Owners Meg Bartos and Jacob Coombs have looked to French American history, New Orleans speakeasies and contemporary French bistros for inspiration for the design of the space and the menu. New Orleans classics like the Sazarac (rye, Peychaud’s, demerara sugar, Herbsaint) along with house designed drinks and wine by the glass and bottle are available. The Marquis also offers traditional absinthe fountain service with your choice of French and Maine made absinthes. Non-alcoholic cocktails, dessert drinks like the Grasshopper (Underberg, house creme de menthe, creme de cacao, cream, vermouth) a selection of beer and shot pairing are also available like a Coors with Old Forester. Bar snacks like Cajun-spiced corn nuts, pigs in a blanket, and some sweet treats are available to enjoy with the drinks. A feature of the menu are a set of caviar and champagne options and caviar bumps. See below for the full menu.

Coombs is originally from the Skowhegan area in Somerset County and the couple met while he was bartending in Saint Croix. Since moving back to Maine he’s worked at a number of local establishments and was on staff at Sagamore Hill. Bartos has lived in France and is a serial entrepreneur. This will be her fourth company and the first in the hospitality industry.

The name of the business is a reference to the Marquis de Lafayette whom the Lafayette Building that the bar is in was named for. On his tour of America in 1825, Lafayette visited Portland and stayed at the Mussey Boarding House which was located near the corner of Park and Congress Streets. The motto for the bar will be “Cur non?” which translates as “Why Not?” and was used by Lafayette on his coat of arms.