America's Best 50 Restaurants 2001
Gourmet Magazine, October 2001

Arrows is not so much a restaurant as it is a world unto itself. To understand why, look no further than the salads: Newly plucked from the beautiful kitchen garden outside the windows of this post-and-beam farmhouse, each green leaf is so dewy and gently dressed that its immediacy is breathtaking.

Chef-owners Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier do things their own way in their idyllic, coastal-woodland domain, running a formal operation in a casual age. They grow their own organic produce in elaborately laid out beds that the Sun King would have approved. They stage special dinners with idiosyncratic themes -the Balinese royal court, say, or "Steinbeck Country."

But for all the menu's urbane eclecticism, it is shaped by the garden, and the precisely executed food is very much of its place. Maine's great cold-water seafood shows up as planked Atlantic salmon or house-cured halibut in an elegant terrine. Heirloom greens knit together dishes of Maine venison or Chinese style poussin that has been marinated, steamed, and flash-fried. It all feels personal and persuasive-all the more so if you show up early for stroll through the gardens. Just think of it as your first course.



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