This refreshing melon and frisée salad, featuring fresh-picked melons from the restaurant’s own garden, is a perfect example of Arrows’ classic cuisine. Arrows, located in an 18th-century restored farmhouse in Ogunquit, Maine, was opened nearly 25 years ago by James Beard Award-winning chefs Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier.
The chefs wanted to deviate from a formal setting, and their reinvented 2012 menu allows diners to order from a set of “collections.” Opt for the Oysters in Green collection, which includes one variety poached in cream with spinach and shallots and another chilled with green garlic and chive vinaigrette. The Lamb collection offers fried belly with tarragon vinegar and butter-poached loin with huckleberry gastrique, among other options. Those with a sweet tooth will enjoy the Thai Dessert Box, with pandanus and coconut gelée, banana fritters, coconut ash pudding, and tamarind paste.
The chefs have long held a farm-to-table philosophy and recently created a new Asian section in their two-acre-plus garden and greenhouse, where many of their ingredients are grown, including Tohya butterbeans, micro bok choy, and Ichiban eggplant. The garden has an authentic moon gate, a traditional teak spirit house from Thailand, meandering paths, a Buddha sculpture, and a bamboo fence. Gaier and Frasier hope to dedicate a part of the garden each year to different vegetables, herbs, and flowers from all around the world. We call that growing global. 41 Berwick Road, Ogunquit, ME, 207-361-1100.
