Category: People

Map & Menu has published an interview with chefs Chad Conley and Greg Mitchell, owners of the Palace Diner in Biddeford.

After an (always) outstanding meal at Palace, we spoke with them about their trips, their travel styles, and the community they’re building around the diner. The way that they both use food and cooking to get a better feeling for an area’s culture is something that Meredith and I can certainly appreciate, while their authentic, relaxed approach to exploring the places they visit will no doubt serve as inspiration on our own future trips.

This is interview is the first installment of a new series from Map & Menu.

Chef Cheryl Lewis has joined the team at C Salt where she’ll be taking the lead as the General Manager of the Cape Elizabeth market.

Lewis has spent the last several years working as executive chef at El Rayo. She was also the original owner of Aurora Provisions and tells me she’s looking forward to once again working at a retail store.

WGME has posted an interview with Masa Miyake.

When Chef Masa Miyake was growing up in Aomori, Japan, he dreamed of becoming an artist. Today, he creates art one dish at a time.

“I like to eat, of course.  Then I like to make the dishes on the plate look like art,” said Miyake. “That’s why I wanted to be a chef.”

Eater Maine has published an interview with Sean Wilkinson from Might & Main about the design/branding work his company has done with several Portland restaurants.

Can you have a house design but ensure you’re not copying yourself with all these restaurants?
I feel like as time has gone by, it’s easier for us to recognize we have a certain set of house aesthetics. We work really hard to make sure things don’t look alike but when you have a creative director in charge of decisions, things are going to be put through that person’s filter.

We try to make sure that the overall appearance for each restaurant is appropriate, and we turn projects down on a fairly regular basis because we’re afraid they may be a conflict. If somebody were to open a nordic-themed craft cocktail bar and asked us to design the menu systems, that’d be a no-brainer for us to say no to [because of Might & Main’s work with The Portland Hunt and Alpine Club], or if somebody were opening an oyster bar. We’re very conscious of differentiation in this town.

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes an article about Maine native and food book author Nancy Harmon Jenkins and her new book on olive oil.

Jenkins, already a nationally known expert on the Mediterranean diet, has just written a book that focuses exclusively on olive oil. “Virgin Territory: Exploring the World of Olive Oil” is part primer on olive oil, part cookbook – it includes more than 100 Mediterranean recipes – and part autobiographical account of producing olive oil on her own Tuscan farm. It’s the sixth book she’s written about Mediterranean food.

Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes an article about chef Cara Stadler.

Also on her 10-year agenda is expanding her business. She doesn’t want any more restaurants, but hopes to develop some food businesses that will give her employees a living wage, health care, and some growth opportunities so they’ll stay with her longer. She’d like, for example, to start some kind of fermentation company with [Josh] Fratoni, who is an expert on the topic. She also wants to start making and selling the hot sauces that [Saskia] Poulos has been experimenting with the past few years.

But for now, she’s still enjoying the national spotlight and the boost it has given to her business. While loyal locals keep Tao Yuan busy in winter, summer traffic was “way more intense” last year.

The Press Herald has published an interview with Mike Wiley and Andrew Taylor, the chefs/co-owners of Hugo’s and Eventide.

Q: You are both owner/chefs. What’s the division of labor?

TAYLOR: He focuses much more on Hugo’s, and I focus much more Eventide. We’ve hired an old sous-chef for Honey Paw. Both of us are intimately involved with the menu at Honey Paw. If I have a flash of inspiration that fits better at Hugo’s, I’ve no problem saying that. And the same for him. We try to cultivate a collaborative atmosphere in the restaurant. I really like it when a cook says, “I’d really like to do this.” It’s much better if the cooks have a sense of ownership because it’s going to taste better.

WILEY: It sounds clichéd, but we have a really awesome community that helps us run the restaurants.

Taylor and Wiley are semi-finalist nominees for this year’s James Beard Best Chef: Northeast award. Along with their co-owner Arlin Smith, they’re currently in the process of launching a third restaurant, The Honey Paw.