International Special Awards 2022EstablishmentInternational selection

The Lost Kitchen

Erin French

Freedom, Maine, USA

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Hidden Gem Awards

Restaurants worth going an extra mile for

The story behind this Maine restaurant sounds straight out of a romcom: a young woman divorces, becomes depressed and loses everything, moving to a trailer in her parents' backyard until she finds her future restaurant, an old mill, in a town called Freedom. She starts cooking, does well, and people from all over the world send her postcards to get a reservation. That’s right - they don't phone or email. If you want to try the halibut Niçoise, the bass with corn, cherry tomatoes and capers, or the polenta cake with grilled peach, honey and cream, you'd better sharpen your pencils. It might sound like the stuff of Hollywood, but it’s Erin French’s real life story. And you guessed it - the story was so good it’s been made into a TV series, on screens as of 2021.