Q&A with Erin French | The Woman Behind the Lost Kitchen in Freedom, Maine

In the American culinary world, it could rightfully be argued that 2017 was the year of Erin French. The Maine chef and her restaurant, the Lost Kitchen, earned a celebrity buzz usually associated with the Changs, Shires, and Pepins of the world. And it couldn’t have been more unexpected. In 2014, having newly returned to her hometown of Freedom, whose population is just north of 700, French opened her restaurant in a restored 19th-century gristmill — and on Independence Day, no less. “A lot of people didn’t think it was a good idea,” says French. “They were sure it would fail.” But French created something uniquely her own. Everything about the place — from the flatware to the barn-board dinner tables — she had a hand in designing. Local flavors and DIY pride are its building blocks. Her cuisine draws on food grown by area farmers; she staffs the place with her friends. Eating at the Lost Kitchen feels like attending some exquisite dinner party. French’s restaurant is open from early May to New Year’s. She starts taking reservations on April 1. At the start of the 2016 season, French had 26 reservation requests waiting for her when she fired up the answering machine at 7:30 in the morning. “I thought that was crazy,” says French — and then 2017 hit. At the stroke of midnight on the first day of April, the calls started coming. And they kept coming. More than 10,000 in all. So many, in fact, that they overloaded the local phone system and set off alarms at the mill. A meal at the Lost Kitchen suddenly became the most sought-after restaurant experience in the country. The New York Times came calling. So did Martha Stewart. The attention and adoration has continued. In March 2018, French’s cookbook, The Lost Kitchen: Recipes and a Good Life Found in Freedom, Maine, was named a James Beard Award finalist. We recently caught up with French as she was preparing for a new round of reservation requests and a new restaurant year.

Yankee: You’re speaking to us at the end of your winter break. How did you recharge your batteries and prepare for the new season?

Erin French: For the first time, I was able to go away for a little bit. I went to France for a month. That was really helpful. I visited some family and went to Paris, then I had a week by myself hiking and taking French lessons. At the very end, my mom and son joined me. It was just a nice mix of activities: cooking, eating, getting outdoors. It was good to have some downtime and get away, because it can be challenging being tied to the restaurant the way I am. Sometimes I don’t even get to go outside during the day or eat a single meal. So to get away and miss that space for a while is important. I don’t want to grow to resent the restaurant. [Laughs.]

Now that you have some distance from the 2017 season, what do you make of everything that happened?

I’m continuing to process it, and it continues to astound me. I never would have imagined it would turn into what it did. It’s far beyond anything I ever dreamed of, or planned. But I don’t even have the time to look back on it, because it’s continuing, it’s not over, it keeps going. It’s making me a stronger person, that’s for sure, because in order to keep up with this I’ve got to be stronger and be moving.

What do you think of the celebrity status that accompanied it all?

People think it looks really rosy on the outside, but there are parts of it that I look back on and think, I miss the quiet days. Again, this was never anything I asked for or dreamed of happening. How do I want to live my life and how do I not want to live my life are the questions I’m asking myself right now. Because I’m also trying to balance how to be a mother, and how to have a home that I care about and make it feel warm and welcoming to my family. How do I give them time? How do I give myself time to eat a meal when I can go three days without eating food because I’m thinking food all the time and my stomach doesn’t tell me I’m hungry? And then I wonder: Why am I melting down here? Don’t get me wrong — I feel very fortunate that I have a lot of opportunities. But I’ve learned it takes a lot of courage to say no to things as well. And I’m increasingly becoming more empowered by the ability to say no and not do things that aren’t in my interest, like go on Top Chef, or open more restaurants. I feel fortunate that I have the ability to say no to those things, because it’s all very flattering but I also have to think, What is this thing or that thing going to do to my life? I remember when Top Chef asked me to come on the show. The final thing that broke me was when they said, “But it’s going to change your life!” That’s exactly what I don’t want to happen. I love my life — so no, thank you.

What are you excited about for the new season?

Spring cooking. I just love getting back into spring. Like right now, I’m sitting in a parking lot outside a greenhouse. I was here with a friend, and we are starting our edible flower seedlings. And enjoying that feeling of warmth and thinking about the new dishes and green emerging from the ground. And I’m excited to feel the restaurant space alive again after seeing it so quiet. I go there during the day, I work in the office, and it’s nice to feel it quiet. But I’m also excited to see people come through the front door again, to work with my friends again. Every woman I work with there, I spend my spare time with. They’re my best friends, they’re like family, and it’s really fun to be all together when we haven’t been all together since the end of the season.

Is there anything you’re nervous about?

Last year I didn’t really comprehend what would happen with the phones. Two weeks before, I was having nightmares that nobody would call. And if nobody called, I’d be done. Then what do I have? This is what I’ve given my life to. As I said, little did I know that this thing was going to explode. So this year I know going into it there will be a response, maybe even bigger than last year because our reach has gotten so much bigger. Even more stories have come out. And my cookbook has come out. I know all that. Last year I was sort of blind. And this year is hard because I have more haters. There are more people who think what I’m doing is totally wrong. But that’s OK. I’ve learned to look at those in a comedic way and remind myself that person is probably having a bad day and it’s nothing to do with me.

Do you really pay attention to that stuff?

[Laughs.] I have moments of addiction and can’t help it and just have to look at it. But I did reach a point this past week where for me to keep moving forward, I can’t have negative things in my head. I try — it’s like my little drug and I’m trying to quit it. I’m weaning myself. I don’t let myself look at it before I go to bed, because that’s not the way you want to go to bed, thinking of yourself that way. People are just mean sometimes, but I also think that this process that we’re in, with our reservations, a lot of people won’t go through it because it takes patience. The fact that it takes patience to get into this place means we have a lot of really wonderful people who come to the door. A farmer told me last November, “You must love it: All the nice people must be back.” I said, “What do you mean?” All the people who come here are nice, because they all waited for three or four hours on the phone to get through. Someone who is a jerk with no patience is not going to stick it out. I realized that all these people had to have one hell of a sense of humor to come through here. To wait that long. It’s crazy.

Your new reservations process requires people to mail in a card, and if it’s drawn at random, they’re among the lucky few who will get to eat at your restaurant. What was your thinking behind the change?

The thinking started after the blowup from last year. The first night, I think, I was up for over 26 hours straight and just on the phone. And I hadn’t slept much before that. It was exhilarating and terrifying and all of the emotions in between. So we decided we can’t do that again. It was really terrible getting voicemail messages at 3 in the morning. These people sounded so miserable, they were so half asleep, and it made me think: What has this become? The year before, we had 26 phone calls before 7 a.m. and we thought that was crazy. People are taking this reservation thing seriously. They’re calling so early. Then the next year it turned into this whole other thing. So we had to make a change, but I never wanted it to be a computer system, because in two seconds the whole thing would have booked out. That’s not going to be satisfying for anyone. People will still be pissed off at me. So by asking people to mail in a card we still keep it personal, and it takes the weight off us. I know this is not the way people typically do things. I’m not saying anyone has to do this. But this is what works for us. You know, over the years I’ve received little letters in the mail from people and I’ve kept them all. They’re from strangers from all over the place. I’ve framed some of them. They are my reminders that what I’m doing is something that makes people feel good or even inspires them. There’s something about that power of pen to paper. Where did that go and why did it have to go? It’s bringing importance to our town. We have a post office that’s already down to reduced hours. We don’t want to lose our post office, and in our own way we’re bringing a little pride and excitement to our town. So for one 10-day stint every year we’ll be like the North Pole, and I think people in town are kind of enjoying that.

Do you ever foresee a time when you’ll open another Lost Kitchen, or another place that features your food, so that more people can have access to your cooking?

No, I don’t. I don’t know if that’s selfish or not. One thing I realize is that I’ve created something that is completely unsustainable business-wise. Because if I get sick, the restaurant closes for the night. I have put so much of what has to happen in an evening on my plate and on my shoulders. I know that’s not a wise decision, and I know that nothing will last forever. But the last thing I want to do is have some offshoot that other people are running, trying to make it look like me when it’s not me. Maybe I’m a control freak, but if I got into this for money, then I’m really stupid. It’s one really hard way to make a good living. People think I’m walking out with all this shiny gold, and that’s not it. Our food costs are huge, because we support local farmers and we buy organic produce and we pay $6 a dozen for eggs. And we’re paying people who live here and want to make a living here. I don’t like to say never, but in my gut today the idea of opening up another place is not where I want to go. I don’t know how long this will last, but I do know I’ll stop doing this on the day I stop having fun. Hopefully that’s not next year. [Laughs.] I want to do this for a while. That’s why I take the big chunks of time off in the winter and why we do four days during the summer. Right now I’m having the time of my life. On those evenings when I get to cook with my best friends, that’s the best. As long as I can do this, I’m going to keep going. And I’ll stop when it sucks.

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While reservations at French’s restaurant may be hard to get, you can try one of her dishes at home! We adapted the following recipe from her cookbook, The Lost Kitchen: Recipes and a Good Life Found in Freedom, Maine, which puts the deliciousness of a perfectly made graham cracker crust front and center. 

Recipe: Graham Cracker Pie

Note: We visited the Lost Kitchen and spoke with Erin French in season 2 of Weekends with Yankee, our public television show in collaboration with WGBH. Check the Weekends with Yankee website to learn more about the series, plus when and where to catch episodes.