A Portland restaurant and bakery are among the 50 nominees for Bon Appetit’s annual list of the Best New Restaurants in America.
The Portland nominees are the East Ender, a restaurant at 47 Middle Street run by two chefs who used to have a food truck, and Tandem Coffee + Bakery at 742 Congress St., located in a former gas station.
The restaurants were chosen by Bon Appetit columnist Andrew Knowlton and associate restaurant editor Julia Kramer, who considered quality of the food, service, and lighting and design.
Karl Deuben and Bill Leavy were already veterans of the Portland restaurant scene when they started their own food truck called Small Axe. When the East Ender came up for sale, they grabbed it and started expanding their menu.
Bon Appetit singled out the East Ender’s local beef tartare with hash browns, chicken-fried sweetbreads with General Tso’s sauce, local pork schnitzel with pimento-cheese spaetzle, and burger with Stilton and onion rings. Knowlton and Kramer said the sweet breads are “like grown-up chicken nuggets.”
As for Tandem, the pair raved about “pastry genius Briana Holt’s altar of sweets” and baristas who “marry espresso-nerd obsessiveness with small-town friendliness.” They recommend trying the bakery’s chocolate malt cake, coconut-almond cream pie, and flaky biscuits with butter and jam.
On Aug. 18, the list of 50 will be narrowed down the “The Hot 10: America’s Best New Restaurants 2015.” The restaurants that make that list will be featured in the magazine’s September issue.
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