Chef Erin French's Farm-to-Table Dinner Party Menu

At 4:30 P.M. on most afternoons, Erin French prints out dinner menus at the Lost Kitchen. The prix-fixe tasting, which patrons drive for hours to experience, includes eight to ten courses that have come together just moments before and are “driven by the season, availability, and weather,” she says. In summer, that can mean fried squash blossoms with ricotta and herbs, buttered and roasted hake with cherry tomatoes and capers, and chamomile creme brulee, all prepared by French in the restored mill that houses her gem of a restaurant, in the rural town of Freedom, Maine. The space is as intimate and welcoming as the food, with wide-plank floors, eight tables, an open kitchen, low lighting and music, and flowers everywhere. “Attention to detail is the biggest deal to me,” says the self-taught chef. “I want whoever comes into this space to feel loved.”

That impulse to nourish and nurture has guided French her whole life. After learning to cook in her parents’ diner in nearby Knox, she went to college with plans for medical school. But with the birth of her son when she was 21, she rerouted to Maine, where she eventually returned to the food business as a caterer in Belfast. At 30, heeding “a burning desire to have something of my own,” she began a supper club in her apartment called the Lost Kitchen, which she and her then-husband grew into an actual restaurant -- and a big hit. But in 2013, French lost the business in a tough divorce and started over, moving in with her parents in Freedom. There, she cobbled together enough money to buy an Airstream trailer, and drove it around doing pop-up dinners in barns, greenhouses, and orchards. One day, while scouting Freedom’s former grist mill as a pop-up location, she realized what she’d found: a new home for the Lost Kitchen.

Now in its third season, the restaurant is open four nights a week from May through New Year’s Eve, and books up quickly when the reservation line opens in early April. (Its fame is poised to spread even further when a cookbook featuring recipes and photos of the mill is published next spring.) French employs a dozen women, many of whom also supply produce from their own farms. Since liquor licenses aren’t available in Freedom, French’s mother, Deanna, runs a wine shop in the basement. The group’s camaraderie spills over into their personal time, which means plenty of dinner parties on nights off. In the summer, French loves to combine simple grilled meat or seafood with salads and vegetables and then add special touches. “Maybe it’s burger night, or a big pile of mussels, or a clam boil,” she says. “But I will light candles and lay out vintage plates and good napkins.” The final detail: a few colorful wild bouquets from the garden. “To me, they represent girl power,” French says. “They make everything feel warm and inviting.”