Just about every big-city chef I've met dreams of finding a quiet spot with a little plot of land in the country and opening a small restaurant with a garden. But Melissa Kelly actually did it. Thirteen years ago, she and her husband, Price Kushner, bought an old Victorian on a hill in mid-coast Maine. What started as a humble country restaurant has grown to be one of the country's most sincere and exciting expressions of farm to table. The wide-ranging charcuterie program rivals any in the U.S., and Kelly's wood-burning oven does amazing things to local Pemaquid oysters and house-made breads alike. There are greenhouses filled with tomatoes and fields of Padrón peppers, lolla rossa lettuce, and other of-the-moment ingredients. Honeybees buzz, and pigs, chickens, ducks, and guinea hens play in the dirt. It's a reminder that the best things often start from the ground up, far off the beaten path.
#19: Primo, Rockland, ME
