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AZURE CAFE
REVIEWS & PRESS
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Wine Spectator
has given Azure a 5th Award of Excellence for a wine list
which boasts over 135 labels and over 60 varieties from 11 countries.
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Maine Magazine Nov/Dec 2009 edition, named Azure Cafe one of the must see places when you spend "48 hours in Freeport"
Kristen Andresen Lainsbury:
"For dinner, head to Azure Café, where chef Christopher Bassett uses Maine’s best ingredients to prepare flavorful, creative Italian cuisine. Try the mussels al fresco, which taste like summer special. The cocktails here are to die for, but Azure Café also has received Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence for four straight years. So sip away—no matter how late you stay, L.L. Bean will still be open, and it’s truly a special place in the wee hours."
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June 2008 Review
The Maine Switch
Restaurant Reviewer Amy Martin:
"The plate placed before me was a work of art. Asparagus was lined up over polenta triangles. The shrimp and garnish were lined horizontally over the asparagus, creating a perpendicular arrangement with cherry tomatoes — that’s the pomodora fresca part I was so curious about — spilling around the bottom of the shrimp. I wasn’t sure if I should photograph it or eat it."
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Maine Disability Rights Center
2008 BUSINESS OF THE YEAR AWARD
At the Disability Right Center’s 8th Annual Membership Dinner on October 23rd at the Hilton Garden Inn in Freeport, Azure Café received the 2008 Business of the Year Award.
The Disability Rights Center stated “We are pleased to present the Annual Business Award to Azure Café in Freeport, Maine because of their commitment to making their restaurant accessible to patrons with disabilities and therefore a warm and welcoming place for all members of the community.”
Owner and Operator Jonas Werner stated “We are dedicated to the people we serve and our community at large. We do right at Azure Café because it is the right thing to do. We treat every customer and situation we deal with in the same manner we wish to be treated. We recognize that this belief is not shared by all and so we are grateful that DRC pursues the rights of individuals who may otherwise be ignored as society continues to grow and change.
Maine is fortunate to have a hard working watchdog to keep Maine accessible to all who live and visit here. My wife Kate and I have a dream that we know is a dream shared by the DRC. It is a dream of a world where progress means social progress, a growth in our compassion, our humaneness. We want to live in a world where people do what they do because it is right, not because it is legislated. We want to live in a world where organizations like the DRC are obsolete. Until then, it is up to us, to good now, to do good today, and to do it every day. Then, maybe if we lead by example, we can create a more loving world.”
The mission of the Maine Disability Rights Center is to enhance and promote the equality, self-determination, independence, productivity, integration, and inclusion of people with disabilities through education, strategic advocacy and legal intervention.
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"FOUR STAR"
Food, Service & Atmosphere,
C.Z. Cramer, Taste & Tell
Maine Sunday Telegram
Fine Dining Review
Click HERE to See Review Highlights
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Yankee Magazine
selected Azure for an Editor's Choice Award 2007 which is reserved for those venues in New England which "should not be missed."
"Freeport is gaining on Portland as a southern Maine upscale-dining magnet. Among those restaurants drawing the most attention is Azure Café, a place that knows just when to pull back and when to let it all out. If the weather’s cooperative, angle for the dining patio, where you can watch shoppers trudge by with overfilled bags while you sip an outstanding mojito. The fare is informed by an Italian sensibility, with enticing dishes such as summer ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta and served with lemon-infused olive oil and grilled artichoke. In the mood for simple? Try the boiled lobster or baked stuffed haddock, both made to perfection."
Click here for Azure on Yankee Magazine Website
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Downeast Magazine
has honored Azure with a feature article in the
2008 "Where to Eat Now" edition.
"Fine Food in Freeport - The Azure Cafe's eclectic menu satisfies shoppers — and locals — all year long. -Debra Spark
Within twelve months of opening a restaurant just two doors north of Freeport’s L.L. Bean, Jonas Werner got a call from his wife and business partner, Kate, saying that they had to consider filing for bankruptcy. Their dream project — one that had started with Werner’s boyhood experiments with cans of Campbell’s soup — had lost a hundred thousand dollars and was going under.
But Werner resisted. “The difference between restaurants that fail and those that succeed are the ones that fail close,” he says. Undeterred, he and his wife scrapped their original restaurant plans and started over with a new concept. This time, without the help of consultants, the couple went back to what they loved, Werner says: “Fine food in a casual atmosphere. We set out to do that.” The challenge would be to run a year-round business that flourished whether there were five hundred diners, as there might be on a good summer’s day, or sixty, as there might be in the middle of winter.
The result is Azure Café, a six-year-old eatery that describes itself as “a taste of Italy on the coast of Maine.” In fact, given the menu, the restaurant might be said to have three identities: one as a Maine lobster house, serving award-winning clam chowder and lobster rolls; another as a classic Italian restaurant, serving lasagna Bolognese, linguine with clam sauce, and chicken Marsala; and still another as a more upscale restaurant with imaginative dishes like roasted pork tenderloin in a Chianti and black currant reduction sauce.
As chef Chris Bassett explains, “We had to come up with comfort foods, as well as appealing to people looking for something new and exciting. A lot of chefs feel like they have to do something no one’s ever done before. You don’t have to do that to succeed.”
The “something” that Azure does — thanks to Bassett’s training at Vermont’s New England Culinary Institute and his experience at Scarborough’s Black Point Inn and Portland’s Back Bay Grill, among other places — allows diners to come in for a quick grilled flatbread sandwich, a light salad (like the nicely sweet and crunchy insalate mescolare with greens, caramelized pistachios, and Gorgonzola with a roasted apple balsamic vinaigrette) or a more substantial dinner. In addition to the respectable wine list, there are imaginative drinks, like the popular wild Maine blueberry margarita and the Azuretini, consisting of Ciroc vodka, white cranberry juice, and a frozen grape, an elegant improvement on the often overly sweet Cosmopolitan. Drinks can be enjoyed with meals or in the downstairs bar. Upstairs, there’s an airy, though minimally decorated, dining room. On a recent night, every table was occupied. A shopper was eating a lobster dinner while talking on her cell phone about her day’s purchases, a group of local retirees were wondering if they should try the risotto of the day or stick to one of their old favorites, and a young woman was telling her table about her recent experiences in the army.
“I always thought,” Werner admits, “that there was a tourist menu and a local menu. But the food we thought was for tourists is for locals. I’m amazed at the number of people who come here year-round and eat fish and chips.”
Werner feels that the success of Azure Café’s dishes — whether simple or more complex — is Bassett’s palate. The fried calamari is appealingly light, finished with a bit of Parmesan, lemon juice, parsley, and rice wine vinegar — just the right tastes to offset the crisp breading. The Sicilian-style cioppino with super fresh mussels, haddock, lobster, and shrimp is one of the menu’s real standouts, the standard dish rendered more complex by the sauce’s intriguing layers of flavors: tomatoes, roasted red peppers, roasted garlic, clam juice, and red and white wines. Sometimes Bassett gives a “down home” twist to upscale ingredients, turning his filet mignon into a stylish steak-and-cheese sandwich, one that includes wild Maine mushrooms and black truffle duxelles, fried shallots, and Gorgonzola cheese.
Come winter, all this has to be enjoyed indoors. In the summer, there is an outdoor (dog-friendly) patio. And a new menu. Indeed, the menu changes every three months to suit the seasons and local availability. Werner purchases lobsters from Harpswell and meat from Freeport’s Wolfe’s Neck Farm and uses mostly natural and organic ingredients. A local farmer even heats his greenhouse with the restaurant’s discarded oil.
“It’s like family here,” Werner says, speaking of his appealingly friendly, low-key staff, and of Freeport itself. “Someone asks for something,” he adds, referring to local requests for food for the needy, “we do it. To cook for a family who is going through a difficult time and deliver it? That’s not hard for us to do.” He looks around his downstairs dining room, where waiters are neatening up after lunch. “After all, we’re already here cooking.”
Azure Café is located at 123 Main Street in Freeport. Open daily. Lunch is served from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Weekend light fare from 3 - 4 p.m. Dinner from 5 - 8:30 p.m. on weeknights, till 9:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Lunch $8-$12. Dinner entrees $12.50-$32. Full bar. Wheelchair accessible. 207-865-1237. www.azurecafe.com"
To see the story online CLICK HERE.
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| Azure Cafe Sweeps the Chowder Challenge |
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Freeport Chowder Challenge
1st Place Judges' Best Overall Chowder
1st Place People's Choice Clam Chowder
1st Place People's Choice Seafood Chowder
AZURE CAFE SWEEPS THE CHOWDER CHALLENGE
For the third year running, Azure Cafe's Seafood and Clam Chowders take top honors.
Distinguished Judges and discriminating locals agree.
Congratulations to Executive Chef Christopher Bassett, Adam McAllister, Brandon Tardif,
Nick Stratis and the rest of our remarkable team for their dedication and hard work.
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