Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

September 12, 2012

Small world of fine food brings top chef to Portland

Matt Ginn, a Five Fifty-Five chef who made his mark in Boston, helped arrange the appearance.

By Meredith Goad mgoad@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

Matthew Delisle, the chef de cuisine at L'Espalier in Boston, didn't just wake up one day and decide, "Hmmm, I think I'll go cook in Portland, Maine."

There's actually a good story behind Delisle's upcoming visit to Five Fifty-Five in downtown Portland.

Delisle, the man in charge of one of the most acclaimed kitchens in Boston, will be the guest chef at a seven-course dinner at the Fives on Wednesday. The dinner, including wine pairings, is $150 and starts at 7 p.m., with optional hors d'ouevres and a cash bar from 5:30 to 6:45.

Delisle, a Harvard graduate and native of New Hampshire, will be bringing one of his cooks and a sous chef with him from Boston, along with many of the ingredients for the evening's dinner, provided by L'Espalier's Apple Street Farm.

Steve Corry, chef/owner of Five Fifty-Five, is hoping Delisle will also bring Frank McClelland, the James Beard award-winning chef of L'Espalier, with him. But as of last week, McClelland had not yet been convinced.

So why is L'Espalier coming to Portland?

It all starts, Corry says, back in 2006, when he hired Matt Ginn, a cook from Cape Elizabeth who had never been to culinary school or worked in a fine dining restaurant. Ginn, Corry said, had "very little" experience, except for some part-time gigs in restaurant chains and other places that were decidedly not culinary meccas. Corry decided to give him a shot, "and he loved it. He excelled at it."

Ginn was so good that, after working at Five Fifty-Five for about three years, Corry was ready to promote him to sous chef. But then Ginn announced that he was thinking of following his girlfriend to Boston, where she had been accepted into nursing school.

"I said, 'Why don't you go, and I'll open some doors for you down there and we'll get you into some kitchens so you can see something other than what Five Fifty-Five has to offer,' "Corry said.

"He learned all the basics from me. So he went down and worked at Harvest and Radius. I think the first year he was down there he was at Harvest for the year. He was at Radius for a short stint, and then he got a job at L'Espalier for about two years. He rose through the ranks there, and just loved it, loved it, loved it.

We kept in touch all the way along, and as it was getting close to (his girlfriend's) graduation time, we went down there and he cooked dinner for us, and it was just phenomenal."

Corry asked Ginn what he was going to do next. "He said, 'We're coming back and hopefully work with you.' " Corry recalled. "That was kind of the unspoken plan all along. I said 'Great, that's what I was hoping for.' He has been back now since May, and he has just been stellar."

Ginn is now chef de cuisine at Corry's restaurant, and it's his connection to L'Espalier that is bringing Matthew Delisle here to Portland.

Now that Ginn is back in the fold at the Fives and injecting some youthful enthusiasm into the place, Corry hopes he'll be able to bring a bit of an edge to the restaurant's menu as well, incorporating some of the techniques he learned at L'Espalier.

Corry is also hoping the L'Espalier dinner will spark interest in a new seven-course chef's tasting menu that will be available very soon after the Wednesday event. While the regular menu won't radically change, the tasting menu will feature some items diners don't normally see at the restaurant.

Corry would love, for example, to have a squab entree on the menu.

"The number of people that really want to eat pigeon isn't that great," Corry said. "However, it's phenomenal, and I wish I could have it on my menu all the time. Things like that will be featured on the chef's tasting menu because I do think there's a contingent of real foodies out there who have some time and the money to spend on these occasions."

That all sounds great. But what's for dinner Wednesday? To view the entire menu, go to fivefifty-five.com/mail/lespalier.html.

 

Staff Writer Meredith Goad can be contacted at 791-6332 or at: mgoad@pressherald.com

 

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