Bringing Food (and Housing) to Bar Harbor

Brasserie Le Brun Earns Raves in Its First Weeks

Aug 01, 2024

BAR HARBOR—Food changes you.

You eat the ingredients and they nourish you (or not) and become a part of not just your energy, but your body. And the people who serve you the food, who prepare it, who blanche the pearl onions, who roast each carrot, who pound out the dough to the retro disco beats in the kitchen, smiling? And the people who build and renovate and think up an idea like “hey, let’s have a French restaurant in Bar Harbor,” and then let that idea percolate for 25 years until it becomes time to make it real? They do that, too.

They nourish you. They help create community.

As you eat and meet and experience, people leave their impressions on you and their food is part of that impression. You want those impressions to be good as much as possible.

That’s how the head chef of Bar Harbor’s new French restaurant feels, too. For the patrons of Brasserie Le Brun, Head Chef Zack Firestein wants those impressions of food and atmosphere and community to be deliberate, realized, unforgettable.

“He can be intense, very focused,” partner and restaurateur Michael Boland says, sitting in a comfortable upholstered bar stool near the head of the restaurant, “like all great chiefs.” He chuckles. “He’s great. He’s just great to work with. We’re lucky.”

Focus and an attention to detail have been key as the restaurant rolled out into a quick opening July 6. That attention to detail is apparent in even the simplest of things. The stools that surround the bar. They bought one, tried it out, bought another.

“Try it out,” Boland says, patting the upholstery. “Incredibly comfortable, right?”

There’s a level of care that went into the details of getting the restaurant quickly up and running in just six or so months, and a level of care that goes into the details of every day operations.

French fries don’t come pre-cut and pre-bagged to Brasserie Le Brun. They arrive through the doors in the back brick building that now joins the Cottage Street front and into the mammoth kitchen in their original form as potatoes. Uncut. Uncooked. Waiting to morph from raw material into something delicious.

Connections don’t come pre-cut and pre-bagged either. They have to be fostered and taken care of with deliberateness.

And at Brasserie Le Brun those fostered, cultivated connections are meant to be good ones.

One of the reasons that the restaurant is running so quickly and so remarkably well, Boland said, is because of the talented general manager, Caroline Kolman.

“I would be remiss without mentioning the role that Caroline Kolman played in the success in getting the place open and its continued success,” Boland said. “Not only did Caroline do everything from searching for chairs, stools, small wares, and bar equipment, but she found key employees and nurtured them during the difficult time of pre-opening. Folks who are skilled bartenders and servers ended up learning a lot of new tasks in that month or two. She continues to excel as both the general manager and bartending part-time and is a big part of the warmth of the place that guests have been noting. You can teach a manager how to use an Excel spreadsheet, how to schedule a staff of 15-20 front of house folks, and other tasks; but you can’t train someone how to be warmly hospitable to guests. That’s either natural or it’s not. And Caroline’s got that in spades, along with multiple other talents that server Le Brun very well.”

BRASSEIRE LE BRUN ON COTTAGE

Sometimes, people speak about restaurants in excited tones, fangirling about the food, the ambiance, the staff. Sometimes, people speak about restaurants in the sort of laudatory whispers that they use for the Pope or the Dalai Lama or Taylor Swift.

That’s what’s happening when people talk about Brasserie Le Brun: excited exhalations, exuberant whispers, a bit of fangirling or boying. And there’s a reason for that. The new restaurant on Cottage Street blends precision, science, passion, and people with so much skill that it’s already made a quick mark on the Bar Harbor food scene. It’s early reviews from customers are predominately five stars.

The people are the reason for that.

In the spacious kitchen, during the dinner rush, Chef Zach Firestein calmly plates and cooks and surveys, eyes scanning all his staff as they move precisely at their stations.

Earlier in the afternoon, Sadie Damon creates desert after desert with a sort of calm specificity. Her scale waits next to her on the metal work area, ready to be called to duty. Chocolate is melted. Liquid heaven stirred. The music coming from her phone is disco and funk, and when it seems like nobody is looking, she bops to it a bit and somehow . . . somehow . . . that joy seems to infuse itself not just in her, but the bread she makes, the deserts she bakes, her creations.

Though it’s positioned behind the restaurant, the kitchen serves as the base of the two buildings, encased in a space that was once the Napa Auto Parts store. At its back is a massive walk-in keeping the ingredients cold. In the front is where the magic happens, chefs sliding by each other, pounding out dough, smoothing out sauces, precisely plating everything so that it’s not just tasty, but also visually appealing.

“Behind you,” someone calls.

Bodies twist and move in a dance that’s improvised and practiced. Steaks sizzle. Shellfish is prepared and prodded open, dishes washed, surfaces somehow pristine.

Out in the dining room, bartenders chat up clients. Wait staff pours water, and the hostess stands ready, waiting to bring people to the bar or the tables, answering the phone, double checking, triple checking, the seating chart.

More and more people come into the restaurant, one after another, finding a table and seats in the wide area between two resplendent blue walls accented with gold fixtures and the white quartz table tops and bar top in a space that manages to be both classy and comfortable all at once.

It’s like a scene from a movie where people fall in love or families come together, where someone swoons over the magnificence of a tower of seafood or the intimate delicacy of a smoked salmon tartine.

“It was so good,” one woman at the bar enthuses as she decimates her cheese plate. “So good.”

COMMUNITY AND EXCELLENCE

Sometimes it takes a team to make magic and that’s what has happened at Brassiere Le Brun, a new, approachable, yet precisely delicious, French restaurant in Bar Harbor’s slightly less visited end of Cottage Street that still houses a powerhouse CIAO, the Black Friar Inn, Pizzeria 131, and, of course, the grocery store, and the town’s solid municipal building, a square that hunkers over everything.

Boland said that bringing in top people like Firestein and Damon is one of the most important parts of the business. In a time where many businesses are having a hard time finding workers, filling up the staff of a restaurant is a big deal.

“The amount of work that it takes to both find great staff and then keep great staff, the amount of work that it takes to train everybody so they're ready to put forth the vision you've created — it’s an extremely HR-dependent business. I think a lot of people that go into opening restaurants are all about the food, which I am as well, but you learn very quickly that it's all about the people.” - Joanne Chang

A restaurant doesn’t exist without staff or diners. A company doesn’t exist without creators. And a community has a hard time existing without those, too. The birth of a restaurant becomes a meshing, a collaboration of multiple minds working together to elevate a vision.

On the business-side, the venture is a partnership of Boland, Firestein, Cassady Pappas, and Deirdre Swords. Boland and Swords are married. Pappas and Boland have had multiple endeavors together since the early 2000s. Boland’s first major stint in the restaurant world as an employee was at Lompoc’s on Rodick Street before he headed to Rupununi’s. Pappas was at the Bar Harbor Inn, Governor’s, and Georges.

In Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain wrote,

“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life—and travel—leaves marks on you.”

The restaurant business changes you, too. Each chef you cook with, each person you work with, makes you learn and grow.

Boland, Pappas, and Swords are all linked to, run and own, or have founded restaurants such as Havana in Bar Harbor, The Chart Room in Bar Harbor, Islesford Dock Restaurant & Gallery (with Mitchell Rales) on Little Cranberry Island, and COPITA in Northeast Harbor, Maine. Pappas and Boland also own Choco-Latte. Swords and Boland have Sunday River Brewing Company and The Elizabeth, both in Bethel, which is in Oxford County. That list doesn’t include past ventures.

Boland calls Pappas the mastermind. Pappas just laughs.

In a 2019 interview with Maine Life, Boland says of himself and Swords, “We’ve always been passionate about food and wine.”

That passion is contagious, but it’s not just contained to food and wine. It’s also about community.

“We really bought it for housing,” Boland said of the buildings that now house the restaurant and kitchen on its ground level. Three apartments are above the restaurant in the front building. There will be a total of seven apartments once the renovations are done.

HOUSING AND COMMUNITY

A major reason for the purchase, Boland said, was to help get more housing for his employees. They employ approximately 250. Of the three apartments above the restaurant, long-term tenants kept one. The other two are occupied by three of his employees.

The town’s housing survey conducted in November of 2022 showed that of those surveyed, a majority of the employers (84 percent) said that their employees not living in Bar Harbor have difficulty finding housing that meets their needs. Of the employers responding, 76 percent said they lost an employee due to lack of housing or housing affordability in town.

In January, the town’s Comprehensive Planning Committee heard that the town will need between 522-616 rental units by 2033 and an additional 94 owner-occupied housing units.

Often employees in Bar Harbor have to share housing, sometimes for years, sometimes for season after season. A lot of the workers with visas share rooms as well. When Boland offered the apartment above the restaurant to a year-round couple that have worked for him for twelve years, one of the women couldn’t believe it.

“Just for us?” she asked.

Just for them.

“There were tears of joy streaming down her cheeks,” Boland said. “It felt good.”

THE MENU AND THE TEAM

“One of the things we feel really good about is the food,” Boland said.

That’s because of the team that they’ve put together. Firestein takes deep dives into every subject, Boland said, but not only that, he captures what he’s learned and puts it into practice. Kat Dougan is the creative director for all of the Havana Restaurant Group. Dougan and Firestein were two parts of the trio of Hearth and Harbor, a much lauded restaurant in Southwest Harbor, which has transformed into the Harbor Table under the care of the third member of the trio, Dave Allen.

“If you’re creating a good culture, you see the people as co-workers, whole beings,” Boland says. “It’s all about people.”

Those people, he said, is why he feels really good about the food.

There is Damon, head baker, who has come back home to Maine. Firestein himself. Then there’s David Chapman and Josh Spartaro at the bar. Chapman (formerly of Cottage Street Pub) had moved to Portland, but come back at everyone’s urging, and since Boland could provide housing, he was in. Spartaro was at Blaze.

The sous chef Vel Sugg was at Havana for 25 years. John Flores came over from there as well.

“We’ve got the best,” Boland says.

The menu itself features roasted cauliflower over black barley, scallops over a Japanese turnip and kohlrabi slaw, monkfish, lobster bouillabaisse, short rib bourguignon, half roast chicken, steak frites and a duck breast “cassoulet.”

Appetizers include asparagus soubric, smoked salmon tartine, foie gras marble on wild blueberry jam, onion soup gratinee, escargots, moules frites. Salads include verte, lyonnaise, niçoise, and roasted beets. And then there is the fruit de mer (oysters, clams, shrimp cocktail, tun tartare and a classic platter or Cadillac platter for a crowd).

THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE

On the bar, near the front of the building is a tap tower that looks like the fanciest beer tap/coffee machine/something-off-the-Titanic in the world. It’s a gadget that would be marveled at by the old school mechanics of the world, and recognized by almost every Czech who has walked into a bar.

“Look at this,” Chapman says at his post behind the bar. “It’s beautiful. And amazing.”

“What is it?” a guest asks.

He starts to explain how the tap is from Czechoslovakia and pours only two beers, a light and a dark, the sacred and the profane from the Biddeford taproom of the same name. The taproom is owned by Michael Fava and Brienne Allan. The key to the blue and gold beast is the foam. He can control it.

“Here, let me show you,” he says and then, poof, he’s pulled out a glass and poured it, filling it with foam.

Instead of working like a light switch with a simple on and off switch, it works like a light with a dimmer switch. Four different pours can occur with varying degrees of foam. The wet foam comes out a bit like the top of a latte.

“Wow,” murmurs the man at the end of the bar, eyebrows raised. “That’s pretty cool.”

THE PAST

“The last time the building sold was in 1903 and that was to the Brown family,” Boland says.

The building hosted H.A. Brown, the furniture store, and eventually the Bar Harbor Times’ office and a salon. The partners purchased it in late 2022. The former Napa building was vacant at the time. The mezzanine had to go, Boland laments, because of fire code and height issues.

Because of Henry Brown’s time with the Bar Harbor Fire Department, the buildings had already been serviced with a sprinkler system. The gorgeous pipes run along the ceiling infusing a bit of an industrial feel to balance the glamor of the decor.

The restaurant’s name, Brasserie Le Brun, is a homage to the family. Le brun means brown and when combined with brassiere, it means the brown brewery, roughly.

THE FUTURE

There are plans for expansion in both the restaurant’s hours and in its spaces. The basement will be a private room. Above the kitchen will be more housing with a loft and urban feel and theme. Sound baffles will go up; more mirrors will press against the walls, reflecting the diners; and the décor will be added to and tweaked.

Phase two of the project, which starts in about a week, is the additional apartments above the kitchen. They’ll house more employees, who potentially shed a few tears of joy of their own as the vacant spaces become homes.

Housing. Good food. Valuing people. Community.

“It’s all tied together,” Boland said, smiling. “All of it.”

THE INTERVIEW

Though he is ridiculously busy, Zach Firestein agreed to an interview with us. Thank you so much Zach for letting us learn a little bit more about your process and sharing it with the community.

For you, what role does creativity play in cooking? What role does science play?

Creativity and science play a large roll in my cooking. I really like to look at traditional dishes and pull each individual element out and prepare them individually, maybe differently, and then put them back together on the plate.

The short rib Bourguignon and duck breast cassoulet are perfect example of this.

Even though beef Bourguignon is a stew, we braise the short ribs for the protein and sauce, then the carrots are individually roasted, the pearl onions are blanched, cut in half and seared on their flat side, lardons are rendered out, the mushrooms are sautéed and deglazed with white wine and then everything is placed on the plate together so you taste the individual components.

I am also always looking at the science behind a protein or vegetable to be able to prepare to the best of our abilities. This also applies to the short rib dish; we make sure to fully rest and cool the short ribs after braising in the braising liquid. When proteins heat up, they start to vibrate and release moisture and as they cool down, they are begging for moisture to bind back together again. This is why a steak’s juices run when sliced too soon, and why a lot of braised meat always tastes dry when not rested and cooled properly. When you cook something for that long, all the fat and connective tissue that helps add moisture has cooked away, so you need the meat to re-absorb the moisture as it cools.

Are there particular dishes and/or ingredients you’re excited about right now?

As for dishes, I really love our monkfish with chickpea stew. It is an extremely simple dish that has a lot of thought which comes through in the flavor and comforting feeling you get when you eat it. For ingredients, I am really excited for all the vegetables that really start being available in August, especially corn.

Is there something that you’re the most excited about when it comes to working and creating at Brassiere Le Brun?

Seeing our team, both back of house and front of house, working towards a common goal of providing a great guest experience. This takes a lot of work, focus, and trust from our staff which we are always truly thankful for. Part of this that is really exciting is watching people grow and get better every day.

How has your experience as a head chef and creator influenced how you interact with staff?

I wouldn’t be where I am without learning from all the great people I worked with and for. I really believe that it is our responsibility to teach and build the next generation of great culinary leaders. Everyone can go on YouTube and Instagram but actually learning from people that were once in your shoes is how an industry can truly move forward and continue to get better. I have been very fortunate to learn from incredible people, and I want to pass that information along as much as possible, watch people get better and be a head chef/creator one day themselves.

How has that same experience influenced how you interact with food?

When I have thoughts on how I want to approach a dish and as I execute that dish I can see exactly who I worked for that made me think that way.

How do you motivate your team? How do you motivate yourself?

I try to motivate my team through a great quote that Michael Solomonov from Zahav would always say, “Take what you do extremely seriously, but never take yourself too seriously.”

I really ask for extreme focus on each individual task that is to be done so it can be done to the best of anyone’s ability, but at the same time, I want people to have fun, joke around and enjoy the work. I think this creates a positive work environment that makes people want to work for you than just the paycheck at the end of the week.

I motivate myself by always wanting to be the best at what I do. When you can see a guest have a great experience because of this push to be the best, it really makes you want to wake up every day and get better.

I have heard that your French fries are special. Would you mind explaining to me why?

Science! Cold water doesn’t extract enough starch from a potato as they soak, so we soak our fries in room temperature water. Part of a potato’s defense mechanism when cut is to transfer its starch and carbohydrates in to simple sugars. So when you are unable to pull the starch out, you are left with too much sugar in the individual French fry, so when they are fried, the sugars burn before releasing enough moisture to make a crispy fry. So the secret is out, but let’s see if anyone wants to take the time and effort to achieve the same product.

That’s amazing. Thank you. What would people be surprised to learn about you? About your kitchen? About your team?

How simple I eat. Nothing hits the spot like a bowl of College Inn chicken broth and boiled noodles after a long day. People really think we go home and cook these elaborate meals for ourselves and our families, but honestly, we have been doing it for the public all day, so it is nice to have something super simple and easy.

Are there any highlights so far? Any challenges you’re proud of overcoming?

The highlights have definitely been how much guests have been enjoying the food and service at Brasserie Le Brun after only being open for a few short weeks. It has been impressive to watch our team be able to execute at the level that we ask so quickly.

I would say the biggest challenge I have overcome is letting go. I have always been extremely hands on and in on everything that happens in any of the other businesses I have had. This project is way too big to be able to do that, so learning how to communicate your vision to other people and trusting them to execute it was a big step for me. It has been nice to have a day off with no worries as the restaurant is open and operating.

The restaurant was a big leap: new town, new endeavor, new menu. Was it hard to leap in this direction? And is Bar Harbor treating you okay?

I just look at things as a new responsibility put in front of you that you must tackle to the best of your ability. Having people like Michael Boland and Cassady Pappas on your team, who have been doing this for a long time in this town, made it more of a light jump than a leap. Bar Harbor has been really great to us with their support. It is also nice to see all the wonderful people from Northeast Harbor and Southwest Harbor make the journey here to support us as well.

And is there anything about your professional past and/or education that you’d like me to mention?

I think Philadelphia is the best food city in America and I was very fortunate to get most of my restaurant knowledge from there.

Great restaurants and people I worked with: