Abilene
539 Deering Ave., Portland
536-0855
abileneportland.com
A middle-aged man sits alone at the bar, bombarding the waitress with endless chatter. Other than him, my husband and I are the only patrons at Abilene on a recent Friday night. The man seems lonely, and so does the restaurant, which opened near Woodford’s Corner this past summer. The space still feels half-finished. The lighting is harsh, the walls a watery beige. The paper napkins are thin.
Like a gawky adolescent, Abilene is making some clumsy mistakes as it tries to fit in with the popular kids of the cliquey Portland restaurant scene. But its intentions are good, and this new arrival has a lot of heart.
The food at Abilene hews to the New American style all the cool restaurants serve these days: mussels on the appetizer menu, aioli in lieu of mayonnaise, a mix of the cheekily old-school (Caesar salad, Chicken Marsala) and the currently hip (homemade pastas, local vegetables, pork braised in Maine cider). The wine and beer selections are quite limited — a handful of wines and only two beers to choose from, both from local brewery Rising Tide. We decide on the Bicudo ($6/$22), a grassy vinho verde with a sour tang.
Our starter, a humble Manchego toast ($7), shows what chef-owners Travis Colgan and Anna Connolly can do when they’re on their game. The toast itself, a house-made focaccia topped with paper-thin strips of peppery Manchego, is the perfect canvas for a bawdy, irresistible sauce: sherry and butter, soft shallots and velvet cremini mushrooms. I want to drink it. I refrain.
Not all the dishes come together so well. An attempt to update the classic salad niçoise ($13) falls short. Kalamata olives are a substandard substitute for the bitter, oily black olives normally present in a niçoise, and the strips of slippery roasted red pepper are unexpected — and unnecessary. The standard ingredients also suffer: a chalky boiled egg, dry yellowfin tuna, and an overly sweet vinaigrette.
The ciopinno pasta ($17) stumbles out of the gate. Well after we order, our shy waitress informs us the kitchen is out of mussels — again, we’re the only table. We’re promised extra scallops — a fair trade. When the dish arrives, I’m surprised to see it’s more of a soup. Ciopinno is a San Franciscan seafood stew, but the addition of pasta gave me the impression the stew would be more of a sauce. Regardless, the dish is bland, any nuanced flavors imparted by, say, the homemade fettuccine, are easily overwhelmed by the salty fish broth.
Still, Abilene has hope. It takes bravery to open a restaurant just weeks after welcoming a newborn into the family, as Anna and Travis did. And their culinary instincts are good, as evidenced by sandwiches such as the Pork Belly L.T. (served on Big Sky’s “old fashioned” white bread; $9) and entrées like pecan crusted haddock ($15) served with a curry honey yogurt. The prices are reasonable — our meal came to $49, before tax and tip.
With some adjustments to the atmosphere (softer lights, fewer knick-knacks) and more attention to detail, this kid just might make it someday.
—Hannah Joyce McCain
Abilene serves dinner Wednesday through Saturday and brunch on weekends.
