{"id":16591,"date":"2019-08-28T17:11:05","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T21:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=16591"},"modified":"2020-05-01T11:10:18","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T15:10:18","slug":"starry-nights-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/starry-nights-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Starry Nights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; width: 100%; height: 500px;\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23f5f5f5&amp;backgroundColorFullscreen=%23f5f5f5&amp;d=september_2019_pm_flipbook&amp;hideIssuuLogo=true&amp;hideShareButton=true&amp;pageNumber=73&amp;showOtherPublicationsAsSuggestions=true&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><\/h2>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Michelin two-star restaurateur <strong>Ryan McCaskey<\/strong> returns to his stomping grounds of <strong>Stonington<\/strong> to launch <strong>Acadia House Provisions<\/strong>.<\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">by Diane Hudson<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16614 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/acadia-house-provisions-sept19-300x220.jpg\" alt=\"acadia house provisions sept19\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/acadia-house-provisions-sept19-300x220.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/acadia-house-provisions-sept19-768x562.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/acadia-house-provisions-sept19-1024x750.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/acadia-house-provisions-sept19-200x146.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/acadia-house-provisions-sept19-478x350.jpg 478w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/acadia-house-provisions-sept19.jpg 1050w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>F<span class=\"s1\">ood buzz nationwide <em>(Forbes, The Michelin Guide, The Boston Globe)<\/em> has been touting the stunning tidbit that two-Michelin-starred restaurateur\/chef <strong>Ryan McCaskey<\/strong> has opened a sister restaurant to Chicago\u2019s acclaimed <strong>Acadia<\/strong> in the tiny town of Stonington. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Now that the first season of McCaskey\u2019s debut of the seasonal <strong>Acadia House Provisions<\/strong> is in full swing (closing on Indigenous Peoples\u2019 Day weekend), I stop by to see how his long-held dream of opening a restaurant in Maine is faring in practice. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI\u2019ve been coming to Deer Isle for 35 years,\u201d McCaskey says. \u201cStill, I\u2019m not one of them. I don\u2019t want to alienate anyone, so it\u2019s important to get things right. Move in slowly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">And slowly he goes\u2014right from the get-go. He had a hundred people booked for opening night. Three times. The first two opening nights had to be cancelled. \u201cIt\u2019s just taking a lot to get this thing off the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">When you\u2019re charting your course toward perfect (his work at Acadia garnered a Michelin star after only nine months of operating, and two stars four years later), you need to take the helm with a sure hand, continuing to move forward, addressing each challenge as it comes to light. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe most difficult issue, and we\u2019re not alone in this, is staffing. We brought staff\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">from Chicago, and there is a huge cultural adjustment. They\u2019re not used to living on an island. There is a need to carry themselves in a certain way, as they are representing the restaurant in this small community. The locals love working with us, but when they were putting in ten-hour days, the parents were not happy. We\u2019ve had to do a lot of juggling with this. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThen there\u2019s the small stuff, like building issues. This space was never intended to be for what we\u2019re doing. We had to adjust, change for what is here. Like when we put in lighting, we had this flickering. We just need to do more work, find the right combination for it all. For the most part I\u2019m pleased. Every week, we get a little bit better.\u201d And with a ten-year lease in tow, McCaskey has a good many weeks to reach the perfection he traditionally seeks and maintains.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">T<\/span><span class=\"s1\">wo years into the Acadia venture in Chicago, McCaskey started thinking about the current project. \u201cOur numbers really drop off in Chicago in the summer. People are going to festivals, outside entertainment. In fact, we shut down completely for our summer break.\u201d That\u2019s when the chef, for the past five years, brings 16-25 members of his Acadia staff to Deer Isle for the classic summer Maine experience, including a traditional lobster bake on the beach. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cSo Acadia House Provisions is a good revenue booster. We\u2019re booked through the season, doing an average of 200 people a day. There are 26 reserved seats upstairs, and walk-ins are accommodated by 32 seats on the patio, seven at the bar and eight in a little lounge area. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe reception has been very good. We get about equal amounts of locals and tourists, just what I\u2019d hoped for. And we have regular diners who come for both lunch and dinner. The price point is exactly where I thought it should be\u2014very different from Chicago where the average is $300 to $400 compared to $40 to $45 here. But in Chicago, because of the Michelin stars, we get a lot of international diners. All they do is go to restaurants and write and blog about it. But with summer people, it\u2019s different.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">For McCaskey, the balance between cooking styles at both venues is rewarding. \u201cWe are coming from the same culture, using the same technique and integrity that you see in Chicago. The Maine style is chef-<\/span><span class=\"s1\">driven, simple food, good chicken and vegetables, halibut in a stew. It\u2019s food people can wrap their heads around while saying, \u2018Wow, these chefs have a high pedigree of cooking.\u2019 It\u2019s just a little on the simpler side. It gives me great pleasure to stretch my creative muscles out in these two ways to make people happy.\u201d And the most popular entrees so far? \u201cSeafood, anything seafood. It\u2019s crazy. Weekly, we easily go through hundreds of pounds of oysters, mussels, 200 pounds of lobster, halibut.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">O<\/span><span class=\"s1\">n this season\u2019s menu, McCaskey says, \u201cWe have introduced an heirloom tomato salad, a great first course with a glass of bubbly on the deck. And flatbread. I wanted to see how it would sell, as kind of a preview to pizza on the patio next year. It\u2019s garlic oil, prosciutto, provolone cheese, crimini mushrooms, summer truffles, and Four Seasons Farm\u2019s arugula.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">As for comparing his life this summer to his many years visiting Deer Isle? \u201cMy whole life I have loved it. My childhood was hanging out in the kitchen at Goose Cove Lodge, the tidal pools, dating, playing, and just being here. Maybe that is a romanticized version, but I was looking at it from that perspective. It\u2019s not the same, living here as a businessman. It\u2019s different from how I remembered it. It\u2019s adjusting to what is out there. I want us all to thrive, to be creative. I\u2019m super glad we did it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe other night I just sat on my porch (at his summer home on Burnt Cove) and played acoustic guitar. I was here. I tried to absorb it. I just sat, decompressing and remembering the things I really love about being here.\u201d That same evening, most likely diners at Acadia House Provisions were celebrating the newest of the things they love about being here.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chef Ryan McCaskey has opened a new restaurant.<br \/>\nBy Diane Hudson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,315],"tags":[437,436,127,435,339,434,438],"class_list":["post-16591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-hungry-eye","tag-acadia","tag-acadia-house-provisions","tag-maine","tag-michelin-star","tag-restaurant","tag-ryan-mccaskey","tag-stonington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16591"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18574,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16591\/revisions\/18574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}