{"id":8304,"date":"2013-07-18T09:03:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T16:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=8304"},"modified":"2013-07-19T09:30:50","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T16:30:50","slug":"supply-side-gastronomics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/supply-side-gastronomics\/","title":{"rendered":"Supply-side Gastronomics"},"content":{"rendered":"

July\/August 2013 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Exotic wholesalers with a genius for retail chart the middle ground.<\/h3>\n

By Claire Z. Cramer<\/p>\n

\"supply\"<\/a>It’s no secret that one of the best things about Maine\u2019s biggest city is our food. Portland is a distribution center for fresh seafood and locally raised meat, eggs, dairy products, and produce. We\u2019re a hub of imported specialties. We\u2019re also home to a lot of food-crazy citizen-gourmets. We love our restaurants but we also love to cook and we want the best ingredients. We have exceptional access to great ingredients at the retail level. We can buy just-off-the-boat seafood, Maine-raised chicken, foraged mushrooms, and haricots just like the chefs do. And if we want imported caviar, pasta, or cheese, we can have that, too.<\/p>\n

A Decent Cup of Coffee<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mary Allen Lindemann and Alan Spear are celebrating their 19th year of Coffee By Design in Portland. \u201cWhen we opened our first CBD on Congress Street, there was 40 percent vacancy downtown. No L.L. Bean, no MECA. We\u2019re so lucky to have been there for all that followed. The State Theatre was renovated, Bella Bella opened. We are co-founders of Portland Buy Local.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nineteen years have not even begun to dim Lindemann\u2019s enthusiasm for the coffee business. \u201cWe buy coffee from all over the world\u2013Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Sumatra, Ethiopia. Our decisions are all based on what we sample and 100 percent traceability of the farming practices. Coffee is an agricultural product. Taste may vary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later this year, the roastery operation currently within the Washington Avenue retail store will move to a larger warehouse space in Portland\u2019s latest hot frontier, East Bayside.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be the first time we can really display and demonstrate equipment for our wholesale customers to buy,\u201d says Lindemann. A restaurant \u201creally has to have a good machine. And you really have to have a grinder.\u201d CBD supplies many restaurants. \u201cFore Street Restaurant was our first account\u2013way back when. We were so thrilled, so honored to work with a chef like Sam Hayward. But you know, there are chefs out there who are very big coffee drinkers with very particular tastes: Sam, Rob Evans [of Duckfat, and former chef\/owner of Hugo\u2019s], and Stephen Lanzalotta when he had his restaurant Sophia\u2019s on Market St. He knew exactly what he wanted. We roast proprietary blends for restaurants, decaf, too. We hear over and over that customers don\u2019t believe it\u2019s decaf because it tastes too good. Decaf is<\/em> good!\u201d<\/p>\n

The company has no wholesale sales force. \u201cIt\u2019s literally word of mouth. Restaurants come to us. We\u2019re not the perfect coffee for every account, and that\u2019s fine. We\u2019re firm believers that there\u2019s a bean for everyone, and it\u2019s not always us. There\u2019s room for all of us. Maine has real coffee quality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Word of mouth put Coffee by Design in all the R\u00ed R\u00e1 pubs around the country, and in Cardullo\u2019s specialty foods in Cambridge, Mass. Many Portland offices run on CBD. \u201cAnd we\u2019re in a good number of churches. They tell us people stay longer for coffee hour after the service if the coffee\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stars of India Street<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re an old school Italian supplier\u2026a local family business,\u201d says Rick Micucci of the Micucci Grocery Co. and Micucci Wholesale Foods on India Street. The store was opened in 1965 by his parents, Leo and Iris Micucci. \u201cWe were pretty well known in the Italian community\u2013people knew they could find exceptional products here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, everyone knows it. Home cooks never tire of what Rick Micucci calls \u201cItalian staples and specialties\u201d\u2013gleaming bottles of olive oil from Italy (and Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Lebanon); canned San Marzano tomatoes and imported tuna in olive oil; anchovies, neatly rolled around capers in jars; cheese and salumi in the deli case; and many brands of imported pasta at every price point. There\u2019s a selection of produce such as tomatoes, broccoli rabe, onions, lemons, and fresh basil. It\u2019s just the place to dream up something fabulous to make for dinner, because the ingredients\u2013from the prosecco to the biscotti and espresso\u2013are all right there. Micucci\u2019s wholesale operation delivers all over the state, but the grocery store\u2013with Iris Micucci often right there at the cash register \u2013remains a friendly neighborhood treasure.<\/p>\n

Seafood Central<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Alfiero brothers\u2013Ben, Nick, and Mike\u2013at Harbor Fish Market are another founding family of Portland\u2019s food landscape. Opened in 1969 by Ben Sr. on Custom House Wharf, Harbor Fish was supplying seafood to the original Porthole and Boone\u2019s restaurants then as it is today. \u201cWe\u2019ve been reminiscing lately about the growth of the restaurants over the years,\u201dsays Nick. \u201cThere used to be just a few decent ones. Now!\u201d He laughs. \u201cAnd we handle almost all of them.\u201d For home cooks, Harbor Fish\u2019s strengths are in the variety available\u2013and the friendly service. Anyone you ask offers useful information about the fish and even suggestions on cooking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our early days we owned two fishing vessels, but we realized that\u2019s not our principle expertise.\u201d The market\u2019s first cookbook debuts this summer. Harbor Fish Market: Seafood Recipes From Maine<\/em> (Down East Books $29.99) contains recipes from the Alfieros and others, with narrative and stories.<\/p>\n

Friendly Neighbors<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cPat\u2019s Meat Market opened on Stevens Ave. in 1951,\u201d says Elliot Vacchiano, 27. \u201cMy great-grandfather Pat and his brother Sam. Then Pat\u2019s son, Joe\u2013my grandfather\u2013ran it. Now my brother Nick and I are here with my father, Jamie. We\u2019re all butchers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The market is a retail institution for discerning seekers of good steaks, lamb, and veal shanks, and they make eight popular varieties of sausages \u201calmost every day.\u201d The comments you hear most often from Pat\u2019s legions of loyal customers run along the same line: \u201cThey sliced my steaks\/ground my beef\/cut my tenderloin right then.\u201d The mark old-fashioned charm is sincere, and it\u2019s irresistible.<\/p>\n

The butcher shop is an all-male enclave, but the deli side of Pat\u2019s is Frances \u201cCissy\u201d Conley\u2019s territory. Included are sandwiches and prepared food like homemade soups and lasagna to take home for dinner. Cissy makes all the deli chicken, potato, and slaw salads, too.<\/p>\n

The wholesale meat includes \u201cjust about every burger place in the area. We even supply the Fisherman\u2019s Grill with their burger and chicken,\u201d says Elliot.<\/p>\n

The Little Market That Could<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rosemont Markets on Brighton Ave., Munjoy Hill, and in Yarmouth evolved from the old Portland Greengrocer that we all used to take for granted 10 years ago on Commercial Street, run by Nick Witte, John Naylor, and baker Scott Anderson. After the Greengrocer closed, Naylor and Anderson started the Rosemont in 2005 in a small storefront on Brighton Avenue. Despite the tight quarters and tricky parking, the place was a hit. The excellent local vegetables, produce, eggs, cheese, fresh bread and pastries, squares of pizza for lunch, delicious locally raised meat and chicken that really tasted like chicken, thoughtful wine selection, wine tastings, and still-warm baked goods at the cash register that the Greengrocer was known for were back, and bigger and better. Eventually, the market outgrew the space and jumped across Brighton Ave. to a much larger space, with the bakery operation remaining in place. Even now, with three Rosemonts and the Rosemont Produce storefront on Commercial St., the business seems to just keep growing: a bank of new fridge cases and butcher, fish, deli meats, and cheese counters on Brighton; wine advice from Joe Appel and regular wine tastings; never-ending seasonal surprises like ramps and fresh fava beans; artisinal lingui\u00e7a and andouille; shiny salt-flecked pretzel burger buns; the best pizza dough for home cooks; and an expanded catering business. \u201cI love it,\u201d says Naylor. \u201cI\u2019m working like six days a week and I don\u2019t even care. It\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smile and Say Cheese<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kris Horton opened K. Horton Specialty Foods when the bygone Portland Public Market debuted in 1998. The original intent had been to sell smoked seafood from her father\u2019s smokehouse. Cheese and crackers were included as other appetizers. The cheese took off, and today Horton is the go-to expert and source for many Maine cheesemakers like Silvery Moon, Sunset Acres, and Nezinscot Farm, and she stocks a fascinating imported selection. When the Public Market closed, Horton was the organizer who got the Market House going in Monument Square, where there are now nine food and drink businesses on two floors. She still carries smoked seafood and meat, house-made spreads, and other select goodies. She does a bit of trade with restaurants. \u201cFore Street has the same commitment we do to Maine cheesemakers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caviar Central<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rod Mitchell\u2019s successful wholesale seafood business, Browne Trading Co., which supplies some of this country\u2019s most famous restaurants, opened a retail shop on Commercial Street in 2000. It was and is, in a word, deluxe. Beautiful seafood, including house-smoked offerings, cheese, p\u00e2t\u00e9, fine wine, carefully curated condiments, and caviar and roe. A line of Scottish salmon smoked on the premises is labeled as French chef Daniel Boulud\u2019s brand. The store dispels any perception of elitism by offering a takeout menu for lunch, holding free wine tastings twice a month and sometimes even free caviar tastings.<\/p>\n

Rod Mitchell got ahead of the dwindling available supply of wild-harvested caviar and started sampling and researching the traceability of farmed caviar. \u201cRight now we have Alaskan salmon roe for $10 an ounce, freshwater hackleback caviar for $20 an ounce, and spoonbill caviar for $30 an ounce,\u201d says Keith Hebert, at Browne\u2019s seafood counter. The most expensive caviar? \u201cRight now, imperial caviar, farmed in China. A 20-gram jar is $130.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July\/August 2013
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