O c t o b e r 2 0 1 8 5 7 Hungry Eye five fifty-five - meaghan maurice Bites Love While we appreciate the accolades, Portland’s chefs and restaurants need no introduction. T he best thing about the much-ballyhooed recent Bon Appétit piece that names our sweet Little Easy (my nickname for Portland) the 2018 Restaurant City of the Year is that none of my favorite places was named and therefore wrecked forever. But that may also be the worst thing about it. While it’s great to see Portland’s culinary embarrassment of riches praised and singled out, it is equally bewildering to be praised for having a hopping food scene when the true diehard originators who made that scene possible are passed over in favor of newcomers. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Little Giant or Chaval, but come on. Fore Street barely gets a mention—Fore Street! Sam Hayward, who brought farm-to- table and sea-to-plate dining to Maine, is arguably the father and grandfather of ev- ery restaurant on the list. Let me go out on a limb and extend that to just about every good restaurant up and down the coast. And Scales, Hayward’s latest (several years old, but still newish) venture, along By Kate Christensen