Restaurants turn to local food for authentic and fresh flavors

Causing a restaurant cook's heart to sing is no small matter, so when Marilu Scott of Eastport's Bank Square Pizza and Deli rhapsodizes about the quality of the 200 pounds of tomatillos and 40 pounds of jalapeños she purchases from farmer Robin Follette of Seasons Eatings Farm in Talmadge, those who sit down for her authentic Mexican dishes know they're in for a treat. "Absolutely spectacular," says Scott of the standing order she has with Follette. "They make the best salsa we've ever tasted." She waxes eloquent about the pectin content of the tomatillos and the hiccup-inducing heat of the jalapeños.
Scott is one of a number of restaurant owners who are embracing the farm‑to‑restaurant experience and who are snapping up whatever they can to enhance their cooking and the gustatory experience of their customers. "Given a chance to buy locally, we'll do it," Scott says. She'd be happy to find more local farms to supply her with zucchini, cilantro and hot peppers.
Just down the street from Scott's establishment is the Liberty Café, owned by Tyra Baker. She buys Greek yogurt from Tide Mill Creamery in Edmunds and lamb from a Maine farm farther afield, North Star Farm. She's hoping to be able to purchase lamb from Kilby Ridge Farm in Dennysville in the near future. While it's a bit more expensive than buying from standard restaurant supply companies, she says, "It's worth it. The quality is there." The yogurt "tastes like my grandmother would make. The lamb is so tender. It is so fresh, it makes a big difference."
Like Scott, Baker is interested in expanding her use of local farm products. "Every chance we get, we'll try." She yearns for year‑round, locally grown tomatoes, an ingredient found in many of her dishes. Spinach is another vegetable she'd like to find locally. Follette, who after four years is cutting back the restaurant supply side of her farming, will supply Baker with eggplant and continue to supply Scott with her salsa verde ingredients.
Along with the Liberty Café are a number of other restaurants that use Tide Mill Creamery's products. Ethan Bien of the creamery notes that Morning Glory Bakery of Bar Harbor buys the Greek yogurt, regular yogurt and fromage blanc. Whole Life and the Fisherman's Wharf also purchase fromage blanc. Tide Mill Creamery is a licensed cheese-making facility located on Tide Mill Organic Farm. It buys all its milk from the farm and shares many of the same customers, but they are two different businesses.
Known for its pies, Helen's Restaurant of Machias uses local raspberries, blackberries, wild blueberries and rhubarb in its pastries. Strawberries, says co‑owner Julie Barker, are missing from the local repertoire. She'd love to find a county supplier. The restaurant buys just about all of its seafood locally and purchases ricotta from Tide Mill Farm and goat cheese from Garden Side Dairy in Jonesboro.
Aaron Bell and his wife Carly DelSignore operate Tide Mill Organic Farm. DelSignore explains that the certified organic ricotta sold to Helen's is produced in a partnership with Garden Side Dairy. "We give her our cow's milk and contract her to make the ricotta for us." Tide Mill Organic Farm supplies a number of products to other establishments including Mount Desert Island restaurants Sassafras, Burning Tree and Morning Glory Bakery as well as Steuben's The Kitchen Garden Restaurant. Helen's is just about to start offering Tide Mill's organic beef liver, a popular dish with restaurant goers.
Fiddleheads and seasonal garden produce are other items Helen's purchases from local suppliers. "People notice that it's a fresh taste," says Barker. It's the flavor, she adds, which people pay attention to. The goat cheese is the restaurant's "local number one seller. The goat cheese salad -- we go through a ton of it." Keeping costs contained is always a concern for restaurants, but Barker says, "Pricing has been fair." She notes that Helen's has been part of the county's food loop for years, supplying the restaurant's food waste to local farmers to give to their pigs.
DelSignore appreciates how the restaurants Tide Mill Organic Farm works with list the source of local foods on their menus. "There's a new wave of people who go out to eat and expect to find local and organic foods on their menus." She adds, "I think it's smart, and people are looking for that transparency of their food and want to know where it's coming from."
Bien says, "We'd love for this to be a bigger part of what we do. It would be wonderful for all of Washington County's restaurants to source stuff locally as much as possible."
The farmer's perspective
It's a big county, says Follette about the distribution challenges farmers face. Getting freshly packed products to restaurants in a timely manner may mean swapping delivery responsibilities with another farmer or working with a farm like Tide Mill that has a refrigerated truck. Tide Mill Creamery uses Tide Mill Organic Farm's truck. Bien comments, "We usually reach critical mass with our orders and the farm's combined. Liberty Café's orders are already big enough to stand on their own."
DelSignore explains that having a refrigerated truck ensures that quality and temperature requirements of milk, meat and produce are maintained. The quality control is expensive but important. "We are still struggling to get to the 'break even' point with enough sales on the truck to cover our distribution costs. My hope is that we can distribute more food from our Washington County farms so that the costs of distribution can be spread out. I see this as a win‑win: more demand from local restaurants for local products, more agriculture in Washington County and more families eating food that is local, some raised organically, on family‑scale farms. It has an amazing ripple effect that would really benefit our community."
Getting the word out about a farm's ability to supply restaurants is work that needs to be done carefully, explains Follette. "Talk to chefs about what they want and then grow it." Raising beautiful heirloom tomatoes may not be what they want, she adds with a rueful laugh at her own experience. DelSignore adds that reaching out to the right restaurants is important. Those that recognize the difference local products can make not only to taste but to their own marketing efforts will make a good farm‑to‑restaurant fit.
Sometimes, though, it works the other way around. The Liberty Café reached out to Tide Mill Creamery through Eat Local Eastport coordinator Anne Hopkins. "Make sure you have a great product that distinguishes itself," says DelSignore to aspiring farmers. "Restaurants want to please their customers, and chefs who are paying attention definitely recognize a dramatic difference in the products that come from local farms."
Like Follette, DelSignore emphasizes the importance of building relationships with the chefs, bakers and cooks. But just as critical are "the costs of your product" and pricing them accordingly. "No one wins if you are selling your product below your costs," says DelSignore.
DelSignore has a parting thought on developing the relationships between county farms and area restaurants. A lot of work goes into developing those relationships. One idea is to create "a position for an individual who can be a rep for Washington County farms and help to develop relationships with restaurants." The farm‑to‑school coordinator works in a similar capacity, she explains. "We need to know what the barriers are for restaurants to use local products and then develop a plan to overcome some of them. It's hard for one farm to support this position, but if several of us banded together to pool our resources for a mutual benefit, it could be a really exciting thing."