Dining Down East

Cape Arundel Inn
The food and service are so good here, it's easy to forget the view of Walker's Point.

     The view from the dining room of the Cape Arundel Inn in Kennebunkport is a breathtaking 180-degree arc that begins at Goat Island Light off Cape Porpoise and sweeps far out into the twinkling North Atlantic before the eye once again makes landfall at York.  The middle ground of this maritime crescent is occupied by Walker's Point and the summer compound belonging to former President George Herbert Walker Bush and his wife, Barbara.  Though the Bushes have been out of the White House now for two tumultuous Clinton terms, the tour buses and Winnebagos keep right on rolling along Ocean Avenue.  With the 2000 presidential campaign in full swing, however, the Bush-watchers may now be hoping for a glimpse of a future President Bush, former First Son George W. being the Republican presidential candidate.

     The Cape Arundel Inn sits high enough off the shore drive to remain aloof from all the celebrity rubbernecking, yet it does boast perhaps the best public view of Walker's Point on dry land.  The sole public accommodation in the midst of Cape Arundel's moneyed summer colony, the Inn began life in 1895 as a handsome Shingle-style summer cottage.  Just after World War II and well before zoning came to Kennebunkport, the great seaside cottage began taking in guests.  Now those of us who cannot afford a Shingle-style cottage on Ocean Avenue - let alone a family compound - can sit in white wicker on the broad Cape Arundel Inn porch and watch the presidential comings and goings as the American flag flies proudly in the sea breeze.  And if anyone should stir on Walker's Point, there is always a pair of binoculars nearby and a big brass telescope on a tripod just inside the lobby, as much for watching passing boats, I assume, as crass spying on presidential hopefuls.

     As soon as my wife, Carolyn, and I arrived at the Inn with our nine-year old daughter Tess, Tess commandeered the brass spyglass but was disappointed to find that "there's nothing out there to look at."  Thus, like a magpie drawn to shiny objects, she turned her considerable attentions to the collection of silvery seashells in the lobby.  Taking a young child out for an expensive meal is always risky business at best, but there was something about the convivial atmosphere of the Cape Arundel Inn's dining room that had a civilizing effect on us all.  Tess was as enchanted as we were.

     The dining room, which seats seventy, is all white linen tablecloths and candlelight, cobalt blue water glasses, watercolors and oils.  The evening we were there Muriel Davis, a self-taught pianist who can play anything by ear, played old standards over in the corner.  Halil Ozkurt, our waiter, was not your typical collegian working a summer job, but rather a professional from Istanbul who began his career waiting table on cruise ships when he was fourteen.  With entrees that range in price from nineteen dollars (a pasta primavera) to twenty-nine dollars (roast lamb with Gulf shrimp), the menu, too, suggested that we were in for a serious dining experience.

Though it has been around in one form or another for decades, the Cape Arundel Inn in its present incarnation is the latest creation of Jack Nahil, a tan, fit-looking, bespectacled gentleman given to wearing his sweaters draped rakishly over his shoulders.  

Though he understands that he will never belong in Kennebunkport the way the Bushes do, Nahil qualifies now as an old K'port hand, having come to the resort community in 1973 after graduating from Massachusetts College of Art.  Instead of waiting on tables like most art school graduates, however, he purchased the old Forrest Hills Hotel and turned it into the White Barn Inn.

     The White Barn Inn quickly became synonymous with fine dining on the coast of Maine.  Nahil ran the Inn for fifteen years before selling it in 1988.  Having agreed not to open a competing restaurant in the area for five years, Nahil repaired to Florida to restore an old house and paint.  (His rockscapes and vegetable still lifes hang in the Cape Arundel Inn  lobby.)  In 1994 he returned to open the Salt Marsh Tavern in Kennebunkport, and the following year began protracted negotiations to purchase the Cape Arundel Inn.  After acquiring the Inn in 1997, Nahil operated both businesses until earlier this year when he sold the Salt Marsh Tavern to concentrate on the Cape Arundel Inn.
     "I just felt that everything I had done previously led up to the Cape Arundel Inn," says Nahil.

     What Jack Nahil markets at the Cape Arundel Inn is style - great food, spectacular views, impeccable service, and tasteful decor that add up to casual elegance.

     After polishing off her first Shirley Temple, Tess amused herself trying to tie the cherry stem into a knot with her tongue until a party at the next table pointed out someone on a golf cart across the way at Walker's Point.  Quickly, she retrieved the Inn's binoculars from the lobby, but by the time she returned, standing in the middle of the dining room with the binoculars trained on the Bush compound, the golf cart had discreetly disappeared.
     "The Bushes are usually up over Memorial Day weekend and then stay for much of the summer," observed a handsome older woman dining with an out-of-state friend at the next table.  "But, what with the campaign and all, this will be a different summer."
     The Bushes were regulars at the White Barn Inn and Salt Marsh Tavern, according to Jack Nahil, but they have only eaten at the Cape Arundel Inn once since he purchased it.  As it happens, the President and Mrs. Bush sat at the same corner table we occupied.  "Strange to have your own house as your view," noted the out-of-town guest at the next table.

     When you're seated only a few hundred feet from the North Atlantic, you naturally eat seafood, so our dinner selections ran heavily to shell and fin fish.  Chef Rich Lemoine, who has been with Nahil since the White Barn Inn days, has a very light touch with haute cuisine.  "We always want to maintain the essence of what's being prepared," explained Nahil.
     The three of us shared an appetizer of pan-braised native mussels in a lobster Chardonnay broth.  Tess ate the lion's share.  Carolyn and I split an order of gingered Maine crab cakes, which were excellent.
     Carolyn ordered potato-crusted halibut with herb crème fraiche and a glass of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay.  I selected the broiled seafood sampler - scallops, shrimp, and half a lobster tail served with mushroom risotto, grilled asparagus, and citrus saffron beurre rouge.  In the interest of keeping with the nautical theme, I also ordered a Shipyard Ale or two.
     Having polished off our mussels, Tess made quick work of what our waiter tactfully called "pasta and red sauce."  I'm not sure she would have enjoyed it any more  (and possibly might not have eaten it at all) had he called it "angel-hair pasta and tomato Provencal sauce."
     Between courses, Tess was most impressed with the busser's use of the crumber, an elegant little pen-sized metal scoop used to clean crumbs off the table cloth.  She had never seen one before.
     For dessert, Carolyn and Tess shared a huge slice of hazelnut chocolate torte with raspberry and Grand Marnier crème anglaise - too rich for me, but apparently just what Tess had in mind, judging from the way she scoffed it down. I enjoyed a tasty variation on the time-honored fruit and cheese dessert - lightly grilled melon, pineapple, and peach slices served with fresh raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, goat cheese, and honey.
     It occurred to me that my dessert would make an excellent breakfast, but the Cape Arundel Inn no longer serves breakfast to the public.  "When I took over, the Inn had a bigger breakfast business than it did a dinner business, but I did away with public breakfasts immediately,"  Jack Nahil told me.  "People were up in arms, but breakfast is my least favorite meal."

     The two grand ladies at the next table had been watching for the lights to go on at Walker's Point as the sun began to set.  The last light of the day seemed to set the Bush cottage ablaze with a golden glow, and the sky blushed several shades of pink before going gray for the night.  Even without Walker's Point, the dining room offers one of the most dramatic views in Maine.
     "We get amazing rainbows here almost any time there's a quick shower, and people actually applaud on full-moon nights," Jack Nahil said.  "The moon rises up out of the sea like a giant egg yolk."
     After dinner, Carolyn and Tess walked down the front lawn and sat for awhile in the big white Adirondack chairs looking out to sea.  A blond couple tooled by in a gold Mercedes convertible.  The American flag hung stark and still on the Inn's porch.  Illuminated now from within, the Inn stood like a great lantern to the sea.  This must be what it's like to be a cottager in Kennebunkport, I thought.  This must be what the Bushes see when they look out their windows.                     

- Edgar Allen Beem