2 weeks Ago
Guests dine on the terrace at Wander at Longwoods in Cumberland. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer When is a restaurant not really a restaurant? When, like Wander at LongWoods Preserve, it is only one independent-yet-interdependent element of a much larger, conservation-and-community-oriented whole. Take a gander at the 54.
5-acre preserve’s website to see what I mean: “Part working farm, part nature retreat, part sculpture garden, part event venue, part farm to table restaurant and terrace ...
” it announces, inviting visitors to owner Alan Timpson’s privately owned, Chebeague & Cumberland Land Trust and Maine Farmland Trust easement property. It also claims that the project “defies description.” I’ll give it a shot.
On second thought, I’ll delegate that job to my server at Wander, who pointed to the collage-like logo printed on the dinner menu, and explained, “If you look, you can see the man’s face, his beard and hair, it’s all plants and vegetables,” she said. “He’s our mascot, and he’s just like the restaurant: put together like a big mosaic of Maine foods.” The edible patchwork logo is Wander’s nod to a Green Man, a mythical personification of humanity’s place in the natural world, dating back to 16th century England.
Today, similar “foliate heads” have become widespread symbols of conservation and environmentalism, even gaining enough traction to merit a spot on King Charles’ coronation invitations in 2023. Megan Achille and her nephew, Hans Schmick, 2, taste herbs from the garden while waiting for a table at Wander at Longwoods. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer There’s no obvious connection to royalty along LongWoods Preserve’s gravel roads or rough-cut paths bisecting fields of goldenrod, laurel and mullein.
Instead, a more immediate link to the month-to-month miracle of a working farm. Scratch that: two on-site farms. One, Ambarona Farm, which supplies livestock and poultry raised for meat, dairy and eggs, and the other, Whistle Cat Farm, which raises a substantial proportion of the produce served in the restaurant.
Ingredients from both farms unite in one bowl in Wander’s delightful marinated tomato salad ($14), a thoroughly local re-interpretation of the Caprese salad – homegrown heirloom tomatoes confited in olive oil and spooned over house-made ricotta, then finished with a shower of crunchy fried shallots. Order anything with the house “garden pickles” ($8 as a side), and you’ll be treated to more of Whistle Cat Farm’s output. My dinner guests and I opted for the bread and pickles ($17), an appetizer-sized serving of sustainably raised beets, radishes, sugar snap peas, carrots and pattypan squash, each of which, according to Wander’s director of operations, Molly McDuffie, “is pickled in its own unique brine, so that each of the vegetables can offer a different bite.
” Of these, my favorites were the radishes pickled in nutty coffee grounds, a toasty complement to airy, salt-sprinkled focaccia baked by chef-de-cuisine Rich Maggi (Lazzari, Scales). Halibut Livornese at Wander at Longwoods in Cumberland. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer Slices of Maggi’s appealing focaccia also appear on dishes across the menu.
Take the halibut Livornese entrée ($32), a Tuscan, puttanesca-adjacent stew, where a plump fillet of halibut bubbles in a miniature skillet along with tomatoes, Maine-grown banana potatoes, green olives and capers. Laid across the top like a ceiling joist: a thick-cut slice of focaccia “so you can mop up all the goodness at the bottom of the pan,” as per our enthusiastic server. Don’t let the double dose of carbs dissuade you.
Executive chef Kevin Moran (Dizzy Birds Rotisserie) deploys the spuds-and-focaccia combo to offset halibut’s lightness, and to give the dish some much-needed heft as we inch closer to cold weather. Smoked pork rillettes at Wander at Longwoods. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer You’ll also encounter a few thin sheaves of dry-crisped focaccia on the smoked pork rillettes appetizer ($16), another plate that showcases Maggi’s and Moran’s strongest skills.
Here, house-ground Springbrook Farm pork is smoked, then dunked for hours in bubbling pork fat until it transmutes into a rich pâté. For service, this concoction is spread in thick impasto across a cutting board, then adorned with a trio of the kitchen’s homemade pickles: red onions, whole-grain mustard seeds and green tomatoes. I was pleased to taste green tomatoes in any form that evening, because before my guests and I had taken our seats, our server alerted us to some changes on the menu.
“We’re a farm-to-table restaurant, so as you might expect, we’re out of some things on the menu,” she said. “No smoked mussels, no cavatelli (pasta), no pork cutlets, no fried green tomatoes, no Pinot Gris and no Sauvignon Blanc.” So much for transmitting a message of early autumn bounty.
.. Wander at Longwoods.
Derek Davis/Staff Photographer As disappointed as I was that Wander still seemed to be working out how to plan service for a Wednesday night in the 80-ish seat dining room, I completely understood why locally supplied ingredients might be 86’ed. But pasta? And a full third of the white wines offered by the glass? Over the phone, McDuffie explained, “We’ve had a few weeks that have seen some intense volume, and that has stretched our resources,” she said. “We also had a wedding that exhausted our supply (of the white wines).
” No matter. My guests and I are good at improvising, even though in this case, our limited options led us to order halibut again, this time in the guise of deep-fried croquettes ($18) fashioned from the trim left over from the Livornese entrée. I love a waste-reducing dish, but this one was unbalanced, with a peculiar sweetness that overpowered the flavors of chili, fresh-picked herbs and a lemon aioli.
My side order of green cabbage with pecans ($12) was similarly off-kilter. Dill in this quick stir-fry of Valley View Farm’s Caraflex cabbage and pecans was a master stroke, but the dish needed salt. And another wobble with dessert, where an overbaked slice of olive oil cake ($12) arrived somehow both dry and swollen with oil.
The accompanying wine-soaked nectarine, on the other hand, was phenomenal: floral, sweet and delicate. The Golden Hour cocktail at Wander at Longwoods. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer As my guests and I ate and sipped our drinks, including a spicy, military-strength Golden Hour ($15) that seemed to evaporate into wisps of gin-spiked vanilla, we looked out the expansive, plate-glass windows at the rear of the dining room.
We watched as families tramped through tall brush and gathered out on the stone patio for pizzas and a limited selection of appetizers. Mitch Johnson makes pizzas at Wander at Longwoods. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer For the moment (until the more casual patio closes for the season), Maggi’s wood-fired, thin-crust pizzas are not available indoors, to be devoured under the dining room’s vaulted ceilings and exposed beams.
The interior – with a duotone of sage-green paint, noise-reducing baffles (that work exceptionally well for the room) and wooden, x-backed bistro chairs – is easy on the eyes and resembles its inspiration: a circa 1870 barn on the LongWoods property. Wanting to get a better sense of Wander’s aspirations, I asked our server to suggest a dish that highlighted the theme and vibe of the restaurant. Immediately, she proposed the corn-and-tomato risotto ($34).
It wasn’t until later, after speaking with Molly McDuffie, that I understood just how perfect a suggestion this entrée was. “The risotto is so farmhouse-forward,” she said. “It lends itself so well to featuring an abundance of tomatoes.
The broth is even fortified with tomatoes, and then there’s the incredible corn Valley View Farm had for us, and it got incorporated along with some charred cherry tomatoes grown right here, on this property. It’s one of my favorites.” Like Wander at LongWoods itself, the risotto was much more than the sum of its constituent parts: garlicky and beautifully equilibrated, with tender green beans suspended in stock-suffused rice and sweet kernels of freshly shucked corn, as well as a trio of blistered, grill-charred cherry tomatoes floating on the surface, ready to pop.
If you ever wondered what a Green Man’s favorite dish is, this might be it. A server brings drinks to the terrace at Wander at Longwoods. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer RATING: ***1/2 WHERE: 36 Wander Way (via 76 Longwoods Road), Cumberland Center, 207-618-5800.
wanderatlongwoods.com SERVING: 5-9 p.m.
, Wednesday to Sunday PRICE RANGE: Appetizers and small bites: $8-$19, Entrees: $23-$38 NOISE LEVEL: Village bake sale VEGETARIAN: Some dishes RESERVATIONS: Yes, recommended BAR: Beer, wine and cocktails WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: Yes BOTTOM LINE: Cumberland’s LongWoods Preserve is home to trails, forest, farmland, and as of 2023, a noteworthy farm-to-table restaurant. Wander at LongWoods is helmed by the capable duo of executive chef Kevin Moran and chef de cuisine Rich Maggi. Together, the two build sustainable, locally sourced dishes that incorporate produce, meat and dairy from the preserve’s two working farms, as well as from a host of nearby growers and producers.
Standout dishes include a creamy, impressively balanced corn-and-tomato risotto; airy focaccia served with homegrown pickles fermented in-house; and a savory Livornese-style halibut stew bulked up with local “Banana” fingerling potatoes. The space itself is open and inviting, engineered to echo the structural features and volume of a barn, with an adjoining, al-fresco woodstove and stone patio where pizza is served in the summer months. Consistent sourcing is still a work in progress at Wander, but don’t let that put you off from a short hike on the verdant grounds, followed by a Golden Hour cocktail and a plate of house-smoked pork rillettes and Wander’s own pickles.
Ratings follow this scale and take into consideration food, atmosphere, service, value and type of restaurant (a casual bistro will be judged as a casual bistro, an expensive upscale restaurant as such): * Poor ** Fair *** Good **** Excellent ***** Extraordinary The Maine Sunday Telegram visits each restaurant once; if the first meal was unsatisfactory, the reviewer returns for a second. The reviewer makes every attempt to dine anonymously and never accepts free food or drink. Andrew Ross has written about food and dining in New York and the United Kingdom.
He and his work have been featured on Martha Stewart Living Radio and in The New York Times. He is the recipient of seven recent Critic’s Awards from the Maine Press Association. Contact him at: andrewross.
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