Pig and Poet

Star-bright, starry night, the pleasures within at the Camden Harbour Inn’s Natalie’s Restaurant

August 7, 2015 / / Restaurants, Travel

Housed in the stylish Camden Harbor Inn, Natalie’s Restaurant is one of the most mesmeric dining spots in Maine.  Both the inn and the restaurant throb with creature comforts.   And the best way to experience this is through total immersion.  That means not just arriving for dinner but, rather, to stay at the inn, making the dining experience part of an overnight adventure in this sublimely scenic coastal village.

Garden entry at the inn

Garden entry at the inn

That’s exactly what I did, and one of the best parts of this pleasurable sojourn was waking up to have breakfast on the covered porch on a serene morning that concluded my stay.

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The infinite pleasures of Francine Bistro in picture-perfect Camden, one of Maine’s prettiest seaside villages

July 31, 2015 / / Restaurants, Travel

The Zeitgeist of farm-to-table American cuisine at Francine Bistro prevailed long before the term was tossed around everywhere.  In fact, it’s virtually second nature to chef and proprietor Brian Hill whose Camden bistro remains a dining destination since 2003. He employs not just the familiar fusing of farm-to-fork but, rather, each dish is a study in simplicity, of copacetic flavors that spring from his magical well of culinary methodology. In a word the food is delicious!

Francine Bistro at night

Francine Bistro at night

It’s also one of the most popular restaurants in this tony coastal village, which now boasts other hot spots such as the superb Natalie’s up the street at the Camden Harbour  Inn (see next week’s review), Pig and Poet at the Whitehall (see July 24 review) or at neighboring Rockport and Rockland, particularly Hill’s other restaurant, Shepherd’s Pie.When I was there earlier this week (my second visit in two weeks) I ordered the pan roasted chicken, a pretty basic dish—but not here.  To me if the basics of roast chicken do not come off well in a restaurant then everything else served tends to follow suit.

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This time the Pig and Poet dazzles with a riveting menu of creative local fare

July 24, 2015 / / Restaurants, Travel

What a difference a day makes—in this case about 45 of them in which the Pig and Poet at the Whitehall has emerged as a seriously fine place to dine in the tourist-heavy coastal town of Camden. I went when it first opened in early June (see June 12 write-up) to experience the new iteration of this inn and its restaurant. Dinner was good enough but basically uninspiring. But I vowed to return to give it a second chance later in the season.

A commanding presence on Route 1, the Whitehall and Pig and Poet are thoroughly inviting

A commanding presence on Route 1, the Whitehall and Pig and Poet are thoroughly inviting

And I did earlier this week to savor a superb meal in what is now the jewel in the crown of the stunningly refurbished Whitehall (formerly Whitehall inn).  By Camden standards it’s not as luxe and lavish as the nearby Camden Harbour Inn, a Relais & Chateaux lodging facility. But Pig and Poet’s chef, Sam Talbot, lives up to his exalted reputation in the dishes that he prepared that evening.  His resume includes stints on the TV series, Top Chef, and pegs in some  of New York’s trendy hot–spots including the founding chef of the Surf Lodge in the Hamptons’ billionaire paradise of Montauk, New York.

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Lodging and Dining: The razzzle dazzle of the new Whitehall and its restaurant, Pig and Poet, Camden

June 12, 2015 / / Restaurants, Travel

whitehall front

As though out of a film set for Wuthering Heights, the old Whitehall Inn in Camden was a mainstay of civility for well over a century, a place where vichyssoise and gossip lingered in the squeaky comforts of this seaside inn. It charmingly creaked and groaned with pokey rooms and the typical splash of faded chintz and wicker in its principal public spaces.  Its restaurant was unremarkable and not one frequented by the general tourist brigade that piles into Camden in the summer.

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