Scott Kenney and Meaghen Kenney, center, dine at Yolked Farm to Table Restaurant in Windham on the last day of October. The couple, who live in Gray, said they usually eat at the restaurant once a week. “We used to go to Portland a lot, but now we can come here and we have the same level of cooking as you can find in Portland,” Meaghen said. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

“Alexa, how long does it take to drive to Windham from Portland?” I inquired before I grudgingly set out for a weeknight meal at Yolked Farm to Table. I don’t know what I was hoping to hear, but 31 minutes sounded about right.

I must have been cranky that particular weeknight, not much in the mood to spend time in the car, and I was probably looking for an excuse to postpone. But I picked up my dinner guest and stuck to the plan. By the end of the evening, I’d have my calendar open, penciling in the soonest available date for a return visit.

Initially, what broke me out of my funk was our server. “Hello. Bear with me, because this is actually my first day, and I don’t have all the stuff I’m supposed to say memorized,” he said nervously, just as we took our seats in a dining room paneled in rough wood from floor to the apex of the roof. “I’m just going to read you what I’ve got written down here.”

The Plaid Flannel cocktail. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Disarmed, my guest and I leaned forward and assured him we were in no rush, especially since we had already ordered a refreshing, peach-and-jalapeño Plaid Flannel ($16) and sweet-tart, caramel-suffused Candied Apple ($17) cocktail from the host. We had time.

In seconds, our server had us in hysterics as he tested out three different line readings of the first mandatory item on his list: the word “Hello.” Each new delivery of the greeting came with its own pinched expressions, intonations, pitch variations and gestures. “Why does everybody laugh when I do that?” he asked plaintively, then immediately followed up with the punchline.

“Just kidding. It’s not my first day,” he said with an enormous grin. “I’ve been here since pretty much the beginning (the restaurant opened almost exactly a year ago). Welcome to Yolked Farm to Table.” Call it a gimmick or over-the-top schtick, but getting a customer to laugh within the first minute is an Olympic-level triumph. I was charmed and primed to enjoy my meal.

Little did I know, co-owner and chef Jesse Bouchard also had that angle covered from the back of house. Bouchard’s previous gigs running a New Gloucester food truck (also called Yolked Farm to Table) and as executive chef for the white-tablecloth dining hall at Scarborough’s upscale Piper Shores community might not telegraph his skills through pedigree, but underestimate his talent at your peril.

Let me give you an example. Yolked’s Three-Olive Chicken entrée ($30) reads as homey and not especially intricate – sous-vide chicken legs with an olive gravy, mashed butternut squash and roasted fingerling potatoes. But if you’ve ever cooked with olives, let alone a trio of brine-preserved Queen, Castelvetrano and Kalamata olives, you know that salt can be a sneaky little saboteur.

Not for Bouchard, who thinks not only about how savory the chicken is, but also how the chicken’s seasoning affects the entire plate. Bouchard dials down the salt in his sweet, roasted squash mash to compensate for the umami-rich, stock-based gravy, and he does the same with the local fingerlings, splitting and roasting them before barely grazing their surface with salt. Take all three components together, and the seasoning is pitch perfect. Holistic, cross-component thinking about salt isn’t common, but it should be.

A big-picture perspective also drives co-owner/general manager Mindy Bouchard’s wine selections for Yolked. Her short, predominantly Old World list should really be seen as two lists. Wines by the glass cover the standard bases, from Prosecco ($12, on tap) to Pinot Noir ($15) and Malbec ($13), all priced moderately and chosen to pair with most menu items.

Wines by the bottle, however, are pricey. Starting at $59, with another half-dozen bottles in the $60-$80 range and several that escalate beyond that, this larger-format list includes some standards, like a rugged, spicy Heartland Cabernet Sauvignon for $62, as well as a few tasty yet charmingly unorthodox choices, like a Lunaria “Civitas” ($72), a grassy, offbeat Italian white made from 100% Pecorino grapes.

“Wine prices reflect that we’re looking for and bringing in things that people can’t really find just anywhere, things that are uniquely us,” Mindy Bouchard explained. “These aren’t bottles you’ll be able to find in the grocery store. They are like little gold nuggets that might make people say, ‘Look at this. I’ve never tried this before.’ That’s what we are looking for.”

While we’re on the topic of cost, let’s get the hard bit out of the way: A few dishes are priced in a range I can only describe as “startling.” I’m not going to gaslight you by telling you a hanger steak automatically needs to clock in at $52, but I will encourage you to think about what’s going on behind the scenes. Prices at Yolked reflect more than just the cost of purchasing local, small-batch produce and proteins.

“In building out this restaurant, we incurred a lot of costs, and we are trying to be smart about how we can stay open and maintain our overhead. It definitely costs more when we’re driving out to Gray ourselves to pick up ingredients from smaller farms. But we want to be open 10 years from now, and we also want to retain the lovely staff we have been so fortunate to find,” Mindy Bouchard said. “This is what we need to do to offer quality food and not compromise.”

Yolked’s “flawless” rack of lamb. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Point taken. I’ll leave it to you to decide if you agree with me that an extraordinarily seared, spotlessly Frenched rack of lamb crusted in rosemary and panko breadcrumbs, then finished with a sweet-savory sundried tomato relish lives up to its $54 price tag. Factor in a mountain of creamy, rustic mashed local potatoes and a generous portion of tender roasted carrots and broccolini, if that helps make the case. Either way, this dish was flawless in conception and execution. I may have been dining for work, but I would happily pay my own money for another meal.

Let’s be honest about something else: Expectations of price are, to some extent, geography dependent. If Yolked were in the Old Port, not Windham, the Bouchards would probably have to do a lot less justifying. They’d still catch some flak, sure, but diners expect to pay more in Portland. That’s not entirely fair, considering the alluring, woodsy interior of this space and the extent of the work necessary to spruce it up. From classic bistro chairs and poured concrete bar to a moss-clad acoustic baffles dangling from the ceiling like inverted lily pads, it is almost impossible to believe that this was a carpet store as recently as two years ago. And if the Bouchards need to recoup the costs of a spiffy, Portland-priced, top-to-bottom renovation, who am I to argue?

No doubt, some (perhaps many) diners will balk at expensive dishes, and with good reason. Luckily, Yolked offers several paths to navigate through the menu in a more cost-conscious way. You could always opt for one of the “Food Truck Favorites,” six legacy sandwiches that made the journey from the Bouchard’s now-defunct mobile kitchen. Among these are a fiery Buffalo chicken sandwich ($22) served with celeriac-carrot slaw and fries, and a “Rustic Reuben” ($27) loaded with homemade corned beef brisket, house-made pickles and local Swiss cheese.

But you don’t have to dip into the Bouchards’ back catalog to eat well without spending an entire paycheck. Take the Harvest Salad appetizer: This enormous platter is assembled on a base of maple-vinaigrette-dressed Little Leaf Farm baby greens, toasty microplaned Brussels sprouts and ductile cubes of roasted butternut squash, then showered in candied pecans, local blue cheese and pepitas. For $24, this dish feeds two.

The “delightful” crostini duo. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

The crostini duo ($18) is another delightful, shareable dish. Here, Jesse Bouchard slathers one plank of grill-marked focaccia with an immoderately buttery pâté of local chicken livers that he contrasts with a bright zucchini relish and tangy caperberries. He caps another with an oozy slice of Brie, a spoonful of puckery compote of Ricker Hill Orchards cranberries, and toasted almonds for crunch. I probably ought to have mentioned that the focaccia is made in-house by Mindy Bouchard.

A therapist by training, Mindy Bouchard may have missed her calling. Her contributions to Yolked’s menu are substantial, and I’d go so far as to say she ought to get comfortable being called the restaurant’s pastry chef. Why? Check out her hazelnut and chocolate crème brulee ($11), a world-class dessert made with Madagascar vanilla beans, Nutella, heavy cream and yolks from a local flock of 60 hens who lay eggs for Yolked and Yolked alone. From brittle blowtorched sugar ceiling to the last custardy spoonfuls at the base of the dish, this is a masterful rendition of a tough-to-execute classic. Lucky for you, it’s only 31 minutes away.

Sugar is caramelized on top of the “masterful” hazelnut chocolate creme brulee. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

RATING: ****1/2

WHERE: 868 Roosevelt Trail, Windham, 207-749-4097 yolkedfarmtotable.com

SERVING: noon-8 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, noon-9 p.m. Friday & Saturday

PRICE RANGE: Appetizers and sandwiches: $10-$27, Entrees: $30-$54

NOISE LEVEL: Rustling autumn leaves

VEGETARIAN: Some dishes

RESERVATIONS: Yes, recommended

BAR: Beer, wine and cocktails

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: Yes

BOTTOM LINE: When co-owners Jesse and Mindy Bouchard shut down their wood-clad food truck last September, the message was clear: Things were moving inside. And as general manager (and de facto pastry chef) Mindy Bouchard put it, the mobile kitchen was “no longer part of our flock.” After all, the couple had spent months stripping a former carpet shop in Windham down to the studs and reimagining the space as a 72-seat, rustic farmhouse-style dining space. They lured back regulars by retaining their sandwich and burger menu, and attracted new customers by leaning in to chef Jesse Bouchard’s seasonal, ultra-local perspective on modern American comfort food. Both Bouchards are preposterously good in the kitchen, and Jesse Bouchard’s deft touch with seasoning deserves special mention. With barely a misstep, the duo pulls off dishes like rack of lamb with a panko crust and sundried-tomato relish, maple-vinaigrette-dressed salad of local baby greens and roasted fall vegetables, and a stunning hazelnut-and-chocolate crème brulee. Prices are justifiably high on the food side of the menu, and perhaps less so with respect to bottles of wine, but the couple are canny and have engineered a menu that allows for a spendy special-occasion meal or a moderately priced weeknight supper. Yolked Farm to Table is unmissable.

Bartender Sarah Georgy chats with a regular at the bar. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Ratings follow this scale and take into consideration food, atmosphere, service, value and type of restaurant (a casual bistro will be judged as a casual bistro, an expensive upscale restaurant as such):

* Poor
** Fair
*** Good
**** Excellent
***** Extraordinary

The Maine Sunday Telegram visits each restaurant once; if the first meal was unsatisfactory, the reviewer returns for a second. The reviewer makes every attempt to dine anonymously and never accepts free food or drink.

Andrew Ross has written about food and dining in New York and the United Kingdom. He and his work have been featured on Martha Stewart Living Radio and in The New York Times. He is the recipient of eight recent Critic’s Awards from the Maine Press Association.

Contact him at: andrewross.maine@gmail.com
Twitter: @AndrewRossME