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Chef Chris Gould’s wildly popular Central Provisions has a very simple organizing principle for its menu of small plates: raw, cold, and hot. From there, though, the frequently changing selection unfurls to accommodate wide-ranging tastes—Spanish chopped salad with candied chorizo; bluefin tuna crudo; bone marrow toast with red onion jam—making it an ideal place to bring a group of adventurous eaters up for a little bit of everything.
Opened in 2014 by chef Christopher Gould and his wife and co-owner, Paige Gould, Central Provisions serves small plates of internationally-inspired food.This dynamic duo picked a historic building constructed with red brick walls in the heart of the Old Port for their first restaurant.
One step into Central Provisions transports you back in time due to the care put into restoring the building and the commitment to preserving its history. Complete with hand-crafted chairs, stools, and tables by local craftsmen, it’s immediately easy to believe the restaurant owners put just as much effort and dedication into crafting the food. With a simple menu inspired by international fare, the brunch food offered at Central Provisions is both comforting and exotic.
Featuring a rustic brick interior and dominated by an elegant bar on each level, two-story Central Provisions is one of Maine’s best. Memorable small plates range from spicy raw beef salad topped with cilantro and peanuts to smoked carrots with whipped goat cheese and coconut fried smelts, while the cocktails lean classic with a twist. Check out sibling restaurant Tipo for a more casual, Italian-leaning concept off the peninsula.
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At Central Provisions, chef and co-owner Chris Gould organizes small plates into simple designations: Raw, Cold, Hot, and Sweet. You might mix a few dishes from each, opting to stick to light fare like an exquisite stone fruit salad, lightly dressed with chili vinegar and topped with nigella seeds and crumbled smoked gouda cheese. Or, veer richer with Gould's signature suckling pig (crisped up in brown butter and served with marcona almonds and cooked apple) and French fries seasoned with Korean-chili spice.
Don’t bother coming here with a hangover. You’ll want all your faculties for a meal at Central Provisions, which was nominated for a James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant when it initially opened. The concept here is small plates, so bring your squad. This is the kind of place whose brunch menu beautifully straddles the line between "br" and "unch," with an explosive breakfast burger topped with miso mayo, egg, and bacon holding court next to fontina-craped bone-marrow toast, and a cornbread skillet served like a sizzling, open-faced bacon, egg, and cheese. It's the kind of place where the menu is just a series of nouns (“foie gras parfait, custard, buddha’s hand gelee”) and the food looks like art and tastes the way it probably feels to be George Clooney. Just make sure you’ve got some funds in your account, those lobster fritters, when available, don't come cheap, and you'll definitely want two orders.
Central Provisions has been a staple as long as Portland has been known for its food with delectable dishes featuring bone marrow, agnolotti, and suckling pig. They also have an extensive cocktail and wine list – so come thirsty. Since there are no reservations here, come at opening, an hour before you actually want to eat or, choose the insider move and sit at the bar, like we did. Expect classy decor, tasty food, and friendly service.
Chef Chris Gould’s wildly popular Central Provisions has a very simple organizing principle for its menu of small plates: snacks, hot, cold, and raw. From there, though, the menu unfurls to accommodate wide-ranging selections—Spanish chopped salad with candied chorizo, bluefin tuna crudo, amaranth-crusted scallops, to name a few—making it an ideal place to bring a group of adventurous eaters up for a little bit of everything. (There’s also a surprisingly extensive caviar selection, dignified with the menu header “Make It Boujiee.”) Waits are common, but you can always head downstairs to the buzzy bar to pass the time.
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Among the acclaimed restaurants that have taken to the streets this summer is Central Provisions, where you’ll find small plates and a new patio from which to savor, say, a caramelized bocadillo sandwich with sheep’s milk cheese, saba (Italian grape must syrup) and membrillo paste ($12) as you gaze toward a distant pier (414 Fore Street). This part of town is saturated with James Beard award nominees
Known for their small plates and craft cocktails, Central Provisions continues to be a popular lunch and dinner destination for those visiting Portland Maine. In the 1800’s, this historic building was the exact location where The East India Company would unload goods. Current owners, Paige and Christopher Gould have worked to preserve the historic details of this gorgeous building. There is no doubt that the food and drinks are as intricately thought through as the beautifully-designed interiors.
With an ever-changing menu, an impressive drinks program, and fantastic service, Central continues to make waves five years after it started turning heads. At their beautifully renovated Old Port spot, Chris and Paige Gould serve small plates of globally inspired cuisine like smoked halibut dip, a lobster and chorizo roll, and cauliflower-feta agnolotti.
2. Central Provisions & Baharat
There are two restaurants that I want to list next because both are fabulous and have shifted their offerings during the pandemic. I have had really special, life-changing meals at both, and can’t wait to try their new dishes when I get back to them.
Not all changes brought by the pandemic are bad.
For instance, I’m not sure when I ever would have sampled the fare at Central Provisions, the innovative Portland eatery that was named one of the 10 best new restaurants in America by Bon Appetit magazine a half dozen years ago.
With two kids, I don’t go to a lot of upscale restaurants in the Old Port. Along with so many restaurants that have adapted during the pandemic, Central Provisions has changed into a takeout and delivery place for the winter. It’s called Central Sandwich & Provisions, located in the restaurant’s Fore Street storefront.
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The craft cocktails, the inventive small plates, the vibe—oh, and Sunday and Monday brunch, too: Everything at Central Provisions is done in a way that makes those who really know food swoon. It's a fancy date-night favorite for locals and a destination that visitors "from away" consider a must. When it debuted in 2014, Central Provisions made such a splash it was nominated by the James Beard Foundation as one of the best new restaurants in the country. Much of the interior was handcrafted by Mainers; Chef Chris Gould's raw materials are sourced locally, too. You're going to want to try everything—from the tuna crudo to the chocolate pot du creme—so be sure to bring friends who are good at sharing.
The menu at Central Provisions changes daily, and small plates dominate. Think: ethereal bone marrow toast with fontina, horseradish creme, and red onion jam. Or the foie gras parfait with custard and daily fruit gelée. The crudos and tartare have a dedicated following, and the brunch menu carries almost all of the house’s greatest hits, plus breakfast-friendly dishes like smoked whitefish dip on Danish rye with cornichons, and a breakfast cheeseburger with egg, bacon, and fried onion.
Perhaps the most in-demand tables in town are found at this buzzing New American wunderkind, a recent James Beard finalist for best new restaurant in the nation. The rustic-chic restaurant in the city's historic Old Port emphasizes cuisine-hopping small plates — from Mongolian braised beef to bone marrow toast with fontina and horseradish creme. There's a reason Central is entering its fourth year as the darling of Portland's dining scene, and those continued queues out the door (no reservations are accepted) are testament to unwavering popularity.
414 Fore St., Portland; 207-805-1085
Some small plate menus can make you nostalgic for the good old days before the world got so precious. Not this one. Central Provisions jump starts the trend with excitement.
But first, the drinks. Generally, we gravitate to the wine, and the list here has diversity and strength. Our server, however, persuades us to try a libation from a cocktail menu based on pre-Prohibition recipes.
What makes a restaurant the hottest destination in town?
Glowing Yelp reviews, Instagram-worthy presentation and high praise from critics and food bloggers go a long way. But among chefs and restaurateurs, nothing says you've made it like a James Beard Award.
Since 1990, the not-for-profit James Beard Foundation, named after "the father of American cuisine," has been honoring outstanding names in the food and beverage industry. There is no cash reward, but a win -- or even a nomination -- can substantially increase the buzz for business.
The 2015 competition for Best of Portland was fiercely competitive. We know Portlanders are passionate about their city; 650 nominees duked it out to win their share of more than 20,000 local votes. The average number of votes was 200 to 500 per category, so we can safely say that all the nominees are local favorites with hundreds of fans and that the winners are truly loved by Portlanders. For the statistically minded, the category with the most votes topped 1,000 for each of two discount liquor stores, and in one category, two cosmetic surgeons tied at exactly 161 votes each.
Five of Maine’s 11 James Beard Award semifinalists have moved on as nominees in the foundation’s 25th annual recognition of the nation’s best chefs and restaurants.
Finalists announced Tuesday morning at the James Beard Foundation in New York City are:
• Central Provisions, Portland: Best New Restaurant
• Andrew Taylor and Mike Wiley, Eventide Oyster Company and Hugo’s, both in Portland: Best Chef: Northeast
• Masa Miyake, Miyake and Pai Men Miyake, both in Portland: Best Chef: Northeast
• Cara Stadler, Tao Yuan, Brunswick, and Bao Bao, Portland: Rising Star Chef of the Year
The venerable chef Chris Gould keeps the quality high one year later at his resoundingly successful restaurant, Central Provisions. And it sets the standard of excellence still for all of Portland’s aspiring fine-dining establishments.
You should also know Central Provisions doesn’t offer a conventional soup-to-nuts style of dining. Instead, it specializes in small plates — ranging from $5 to $26 and broken out into categories of raw, cold, hot, and hearty — that arrive at your table as they are prepared. You simply order menu items, a couple at a time, until you are satiated. Some diners, in fact, will insist on holding onto their menu throughout the entirety of the meal, just in case one more dish — a house-made sweet: salted caramel mousse with cocoa and coffee, local strawberry shortcake — can be squeezed in.
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What is it about raw?
Two years ago, the now-ubiquitous kale salad beat the underdog-vegetable odds to earn BA’s Dish of the Year title. Then in 2013, it was steak tartare, which continues to inspire chefs (you should taste what this year’s No. 3 pick does with it). In 2014, another uncooked dish has appeared on menus across the country: crudo, a.k.a. carpaccio, a.k.a. ceviche, a.k.a. sashimi, or whatever chefs call it when they top exquisitely sliced raw fish with sweet, piquant, and acidic components. Nowhere did I see a more inspired embodiment of this trend than at Central Provisions.
With a designated sommelier on staff and a bar manager who can tell you the history of virtually any drink, Central Provisions in Portland’s Old Port is an education as much as it is a restaurant.
“There’s something great about not only the drink but the history of the drink,” says Patrick McDonald, bar manager and cocktail wizard at Central Provisions in Portland. He wears a crisp plaid shirt (standard uniform for the bartenders here) and sports a long beard and a short, slicked-back haircut. “I like having the ability to revive these old recipes and make them my own.”
With an impressive resume that includes stints under chefs Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnette, chef Chris Gould has been hard at work for the past two years bringing Central Provisions to fruition. The effort has paid off, and nearly overnight it has become both the local hotspot and media darling that has given the Old Port a much-needed update in the culinary landscape.
In Portland’s ever-expanding restaurant scene, Central Provisions is this city’s newest and perhaps brightest star. Chef and co-proprietor Chris Gould has created some of the most inventive food in Portland right now. After multiple visits and some 30 dishes, the restaurant’s trendy small-plate concept has been superbly achieved on each occasion. The format further allows you to create your own tasting menu from a list of nearly 50 small plates ($5 to $26) that form a fusion of cooking styles inspired by the cuisines of Europe, Asia and the Americas.
If you haven’t heard, Central Provisions is up and running—and it’s the proverbial runaway success right out of the gate. I stopped in on Night One (Tuesday) on my way to dinner nearby, and the place was jammed with patrons looking as though they’d been going there all their lives, sporting happy-go-lucky grins with their rears firmly planted on seats at the bar and tables upstairs and down.
The road to opening was a winding one for the Goulds, but the restaurant, with a wide-ranging menu complimented by pre-Prohibition craft cocktails, local craft beer on tap and an approachable and interesting wine program led by Chris Peterman, appears to be well worth the wait.
With little advance fanfare, chef Chris Gould opened his destined for super-stardom Portland restaurant, Central Provisions, on Tuesday night, pulling in a packed house. The completely redone interior of the brick building, at 414 Fore Street, has a straightforward, rustic look, with a wide-open, gleaming stainless steel kitchen, exposed brick walls and chairs upholstered with burlap from grain sacks.
Chef Chris Gould is slated to open his eagerly awaited international small plates restaurant Central Provisions in Portland sometime in the middle of January as last reported by Eater Maine. Indeed, signage is up and sample menus point to dishes like oysters, boquerones, lobster stew, sweet breads, suckling pig, and more.