Courtesy / Saddleback
A look at the bar at Saddleback's Nest.
December 8, 2023
Friday Food Insider: Saddleback opens a restaurant that's at home in its surroundings
Courtesy / Saddleback
The Nest is approximately 2,700 square feet and is a triangular structure adorned with a living roof brimming with fragrant hay-scented ferns and lowbush blueberries.
Just in time for ski season, Saddleback Mountain in Rangeley is opening a restaurant that offers an attraction for bird watchers.
Perched at an astonishing 3,620 feet, Saddleback's new restaurant, the Nest, offers guests views of Rangeley Lake and sits right below the Appalachian Trail.
A consultant for Saddleback told Mainebiz that the Nest will be doing a soft opening the weekend of Dec. 23.
The Nest is for ticketed skiers only and is accessible directly from the slopes, allowing them to combine a gourmet experience with their alpine adventures. In addition to indoor and outdoor dining, a ski-up food kiosk and bar ensures that skiers and diners can refuel and relax.
The restaurant's menu will feature chowders, hand-pies and fish cakes while embracing global flavors, including delicious bowls of ramen.
Chef Coco Chretien will lead the restaurant staff for the Nest. Her cooking career began when she was growing up in a French Canadian family and took her from kitchens immersed in the ski culture of New Hampshire's Mount Washington Valley to culinary explorations in New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Boston and London.
The area of the restaurant is home to Bicknell’s thrush, a rare bird that breeds exclusively in the boreal forest, more than 3,000 feet above sea level. In creating the restaurant, the resort and its contractors have attempted to preserve this habitat.
Saddleback worked on the project closely with PC Construction, Davies Toews Architecture and Maine Audubon. Construction was scheduled around breeding season. The materials were sourced locally, including the pine boards used for the siding, stained with linseed oil + pine tar, making it durable for the elements and giving it a rustic look and a campfire-like scent.
The Nest is approximately 2,700 square feet and is a triangular structure adorned with a living roof brimming with fragrant hay-scented ferns and lowbush blueberries; it was designed to blend into its surroundings.
The Pub at Saddleback
The Pub at Saddleback, another restaurant on the mountain, has updated its menu and will offer new dishes this winter.
The new menu will include seared scallops in a brown butter sauce, lo mein, Spicy Capn' Crunch Wings, Goonies Never Say Die, a type of crab rangoon, Spicy Peanut Lo-Maine, a Thanksgiving sandwich so you can get your Thanksgiving fix and more.
The restaurant is open Wednesday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Where is your go-to restaurant during the winter? The Mainebiz Food Insider wants to know! Contact Alexis Wells at awells@mainebiz.biz.
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