9 Best Restaurants in The Mid-Coast Region, Maine

Whether you sit at a booth in the dining room or at the counter of this eatery, established in 1927, chances are, you'll soon be chatting with your neighbors. The multipage menu has all the breakfast standards (including fresh doughnuts every morning) and comfort-food lunch and dinner classics—from chowders, fish cakes, and lobster or crab rolls to chicken pot pie, meat loaf, and New England--style boiled dinners to wild Maine blueberry, custard, or apple pie. There's a gift shop on the other side of the parking lot, as well as rental cabins and a motel just up the hill.

Christian Hayes—a champion on the TV show, Chopped, and a seventh-generation Mainer whose family has a deep history in the local fishing and farming industries—is the chef-owner of this bistro. He uses pure and simple ingredients to create complex dishes such as meaty sautéed mushrooms in bright, silky egg yolk or slow-braised pork belly with chili, cucumber, garlic-scape kimchi, quail egg, and cashew powder. The dessert menu features ice cream, but it's not the ordinary cold stuff, with offerings like sour cherry and Champagne sorbet or Thai-iced-tea iced cream with butterfly pea flower whipped cream and chili crisps.

Connected to Sherman's Maine Coast Book Shop through an arched doorway, this little café turns out excellent coffee and hot and cold coffee drinks, plus fresh-from-the-oven sweet and savory baked items. It's hard to choose among the scones, slices of cake and pie, sinful cookies, cupcakes, and old-fashioned dessert bars. For a light lunch, go for a wedge of quiche or baked-in-house bread, toasted and topped with house-made salmon spread, hummus, or avocado.

These days, you can buy this sinfully delicious gelato in food stores throughout New England and have it shipped to your door, but it all began in 2007 in this storefront in Brunswick. Stop in and pay homage to the history with a dish of ripe mango sorbetto, dark chocolate noir, or mascarpone pistachio caramel.

This charming café offers several indoor spaces, plus a deck—built around a giant maple tree!—where you can enjoy homemade eggs Benedict, omelets, and breakfast sandwiches, as well as wraps, salads, soups, chowders, and smoothies. Everything is creative, and everything is homemade.

In a large, historic, handsomely renovated brick building, Newcastle Publick House serves delicious comfort food in a pleasant dining room and welcoming bar. Specialties include fresh oysters prepared several ways, a selection of burgers, and one of the best French onion soups around. There is often live music.

On the wharf a few steps from the boat landing, The Barnacle serves espresso and a selection of coffees from Monhegan Coffee Roasters along with baked goods such as scones and brownies, and ice cream. For lunch, choose from prepared sandwiches, chowders, and salads, which you can eat at a picnic table or take with you. If you're having dinner at the Island Inn, you can pick up wine or beer to accompany your meal here.

What started as a candy shop over 30 years ago has grown into a Wiscasset staple featuring baked goods, coffee, wine, craft beer, cheese, and more. All of the "treats"—scones, cookies, croissants, muffins, cakes, sweet buns, babka, coffee cake—are baked right here every day. You can also order sandwiches or wraps and pick up prepared meals to go. There's a good selection of fine condiments for sale, too.