Chow Maine - Restaurant Guide

Thriving towns line up in this wonderfully mixed section of the coast, the site of what some call the state's best restaurant: Primo, in Rockland. Here Route 1 gets to hug the water, turning north in Rockland, and crawls through the crowded streets of Camden. Camden has been an upscale tourist stop for a long time, but Rockland seems to be the place on the move now, with several good restaurants, bakeries, and cafés. This blue-collar town is vital year-round; Camden seems more livable after the summer season is over.

Belfast sustains its energetic mix of high and low, with Chase's Daily overflowing with the most beautiful produce you've ever seen in the summer and an elephant trumpeting from the roof of the Colonial Theater.

Of course there are always changes going on in the restaurant scene. With the growing tourist business here, some places are able to succeed and thrive. Francine Bistro, a small and completely admirable restaurant in Camden, makes the most sophisticated happy year-round.

Jesse Henry, co-owner of The Edge at Inn at Ocean's Edge, plans to open a grill pub, the Knox Grill Company, in one of the Knox Mill buildings on Mechanic Street. Around the corner there will be a greengrocer selling local, fine products from farms in the area and offering the kind of marketing that is on the upswing on the coast, connecting customers with the land and to what is fresh. Soon what's for dinner will be what's growing that week, all over the state of Maine.