Eater’s roving food editor, Bill Addison, has issued his list of the 38 essential restaurants in New England.
Included on the list are 10 restaurants from Maine: Drifters Wife, Eventide, Long Grain, Maine Diner, Mcloons Lobster, Palace Diner, Primo, Tandem Bakery, The Lost Kitchen, Tao Yuan.
Even five years ago, this list would have looked very different — or certainly less geographically broad. (As it is, Boston nabs a whopping 10 spots, but hey, it’s a metro area of nearly 5 million people.) Thanks to game-changers like Eventide in Portland, Maine, and Oberlin in Providence, Rhode Island, there’s now a breadth to the selections that shows off an upsurge in creativity. With its mosaic of risk-taking chefs and guardians of traditional foods, New England has never been a more varied or exciting culinary destination.
I had the pleasure of working with Bill on the list and wrote a few of the entries for Southern Maine in the article.
Interesting use of the word essential. I am not sure it is “absolutely necessary” or “extremely important” that I eat at these restaurants. On the other hand, most of them appear to be restaurants I would enjoy visiting for a meal. There seems to be something about articles dealing with restaurants that require words like “Best” or “essential” in their titles.