Fisherman's Inn in Winter Harbor, ME

There are few options for dining out in Winter Harbor, Maine. Chase's is a down home Downeast restaurant with a reputation for good fried clams and lots of local gossip.

Gerrish's is good, naturalamente, with the best pastries (French no less) around and outstanding food to go. But there's the rub: it's all food to go, at least right now. The new owners plan on turning it into a table service operation either sometime late this season but certainly by next year. Meanwhile it's take out only and fresh sandwiches.

So for sit-down service the only other place in Winter Harbor is Fisherman's Inn. Run by Carl Johnson who also operates the Grindstone Neck smokehouse just up the road on Route 186, the Inn specialises in seafood of course. And his smokehouse is most certainly worth a stop (try the salmon candy): great smoked trout and, I'm told, delicious smoked salmon.

Anyway, we've eaten at the Inn twice now and can recommend it but have qualifications.

First off the service is variable: the first time we went it was appalling but the second visit we had a wonderful server (Melissa) who, like all the other wait staff, was harried and working at a frantic pace.

Second the food. The fresh fish is quite tasty and the mussels very good. The foccacia is not terribly good and definitely steer clear of the casseroles.The second time I was there I ordered the "Native Maine Shrimp with crabmeat" and got a small oval baking dish filled with popcorn shrimp (which is native it is true) and a few bits of shredded stuff which might as well have been breading for all I could tell. Funny but a couple at the next table, the local rector of one of the churches here, had the same dish I did and his wife told me the next day he thought it not very good. And the restaurant is selling it for $18 bucks a pop!

The wine list is good, quite accessible and reasonably priced with some pretty good values , both by the bottle and the glass.

So if you go to Fisherman's Inn go for the fresh fish and have a bottle of the Alsatian white!