What a thoughtful report @winecountrygirl ! Funny, what you experienced with their service is one of the reasons we have not been return visitors to Fore Street. I want to love Fore Street—the food!—but I just can’t.
I don’t know if you are a seafood person, but if so, you might like Scales in Portland which is owned by the same restaurant group. We had an amazing meal at Scales last fall with none of the attitude we had experienced at Fore Street in the past.
I’m trying to link to my review of Scales in my Portland post. Um, apparently I am not that skillful so here goes:
I am not a seafood person! But thank you! But where are Gorgeous Gelato and Holy Donut?
We stay in Ogunquit and honestly, I prefer not to go to Portland for dinner and tend not to go much further than Kennebunkport. But we have gone for lunch - Duckfat (meh) and Central Provisions, which we love. It is interesting to know that you felt the same way we did about Fore Street.
Holy Donut has two locations in Portland and one in Scarborough. They close when they sell out, so I’d say to get there before noon. Some find HD doughnuts heavy because of the potato base, but doughnuts are a rare treat for us so that’s fine.
We’ll be in Portland tomorrow without a reservation. Any thoughts on the lines/waits at Fore Street & Central Provisions, and preferences between the 2?
I haven’t done Fore Street in ages, and we almost did Central Provisions once but didn’t luck out. I have seen a line forming at Central Provisions before it opens for dinner, if that helps any.
Edited to add: Just checked their site and CP is still walk-in only.
Also I only now just realized that I misspelled the restaurant name, yikes. I should have typed Chaval. That is what happens when I type before coffee. So sorry.
We were in Maine last week and went back to Fore Street. I must say, the food was still great and my negatives from last time became positives.
This time, we got a fairly warm welcome and were shown the bar again, but we had a wonderful, friendly server in the bar.
This time, I requested the main room when we walked in . I also put that it was our anniversary (we celebrated it all week!) so we were shown to a fabulous table right neat the open kitchen/fire pit.
Our server was young, friendly and enthusiastic. And she asked if we had dined there before and explained the menu!!!
The food was exceptional. DH had the foie gras again, this time with kumquats. Again, outstanding with grill marks!!! For main he had a rib eye that was perfectly seared, and I had the chicken again because I had been dreaming of the duck fat soaked croutons. I was not as happy with the chicken this year - I would have liked the skin to be darker, but it was succulent, for sure! For dessert we shared a chocolate torte with coffee ice cream. That creamy ice cream was a perfect combination with the rich chocolate torte. As a side note, the dessert took a bit longer to arrive than the server would have liked, so she took the price off the bill!
