Sunday, May 19, 2013
By Meredith Goad mgoad@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
PORTLAND — Rob Evans, a James Beard Award-winning chef, and his partner, Nancy Pugh, have sold Hugo's, one of New England's best-known fine dining restaurants.
Hugo’s restaurant at 88 Middle St. in Portland has been sold. The new owners say they plan no major changes.
2004 Press Herald File
The restaurant at 88 Middle St. has been sold to Andrew Taylor, Mike Wiley and Arlin Smith, who have been running the place for Evans and Pugh for about three years.
Taylor has been the chef de cuisine, Wiley has been the sous chef and Smith is the general manager.
Smith said he and his new partners want to reassure Hugo's regular customers that they are not planning any major changes, although they may re-evaluate some of the tasting-menu prices to make them more affordable.
"We think we can offer what we do on a regular basis all year round for a better price," Smith said. "That will be the biggest change that happens for us. We are not going to try and reinvent the wheel."
The biggest change will be the addition of an oyster bar next door, at 86 Middle St., the former location of Rabelais, the culinary bookstore that moved to Biddeford recently.
The new casual restaurant will be called Eventide Oyster Company and will be connected to the kitchen at Hugo's. Smith said he hopes to have it open by June.
"We're looking to basically do a casual, seven-days-a-week, open-all-day oyster bar," Smith said. "You can go in and you can get raw (oysters), you can get a chowder, a lobster roll, grab a pint of beer if you want."
Smith said Evans and Pugh first approached the three partners a year and a half ago, asking if they would be interested in buying the restaurant.
"I kept encouraging Andrew to think about buying this place because he'd be the perfect person to take it on," Smith said. "He's been doing Rob's food for going on three years."
Evans won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Northeast in 2009. He has said that he wants to focus on his other restaurant, Duckfat, which is just down Middle Street from Hugo's.
Staff Writer Meredith Goad can be contacted at 791-6332 or at:
mgoad@pressherald.com
Twitter: MeredithGoad
Tweet
Copyright ©2013 MaineToday Media, Inc.
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Maine Yellow Pages
Facebook
Twitter
Further Discussion
Here at PressHerald.com we value our readers and are committed to growing our community by encouraging you to add to the discussion. To ensure conscientious dialogue we have implemented a strict no-bullying policy. To participate, you must follow our Terms of Use.Questions about the article? Add them below and we’ll try to answer them or do a follow-up post as soon as we can. Technical problems? Email them to us with an exact description of the problem. Make sure to include: