The smell arrives before the skyline does: salt and low tide off Casco Bay, then a thread of woodsmoke drifting off a hearth two blocks in, then something baking that has already pulled a line onto the sidewalk before eight in the morning. Portland, Maine photographs like a postcard, cobblestone streets, brick warehouses, lighthouses strung along the coast, but the reputation it has actually built over the last two decades comes from what’s happening inside those old buildings.
Bon Appétit named it Restaurant City of the Year in 2018, and the city has only grown more serious about food since, packing more James Beard pedigree per block than almost anywhere else in the country into a downtown small enough to cross on foot. It moves easily between a three-dollar morning bun and a hundred-dollar tasting menu without ever feeling like it’s performing for either one. Give it a long weekend, three or four days if a day trip north is on the table, and arrive hungry.
Continue reading
