<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3onuqT_0vowz6jG00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3onuqT_0vowz6jG00" width="1200" height="630" ></figure>Photos by Hannah HoggattBefore you get cute and ask: no, there is no candlestick maker at downtown Bangor’s The Butcher The Baker. Nor does the name refer neatly to co-owners Carl Birmingham and Brittany LeVasseur — chef and general manager, respectively — who opened the place last year, in the snug Hammond Street space that formerly housed The Fiddlehead Restaurant.Instead, the moniker is a general nod to Birmingham and LeVasseur’s from-scratch ethos, which the pair honed as private chefs-for-hire during the pandemic and over a year running a food truck of the same name around greater Bangor. You’ll find no candlesticks at all at The Butcher The Baker, since the restaurant doesn’t carry on the elegant fine-dining tradition that made The Fiddlehead something of a Bangor institution during its 12-year run. Instead, it’s a spunky little gastropub, with a menu of eclectic comfort foods, a miles-long cocktail list full of cheekily named drinks, and photos and paintings of shaggy highland cattle staring inexplicably out of their frames — a fun and tasty addition to the city’s dining scene.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=232svx_0vowz6jG00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=232svx_0vowz6jG00" width="1080" height="720" ><figcaption>Bar manager Bethany Farrar, owners Brittany LeVasseur and Carl Birmingham, bartender Jacob Hartin, and server Garrett Strout.</figcaption></figure>84 Hammond St., Bangor.207-942-3336.Price RangeAppetizers $15–$21. Entrées $21–$37.DessertsWithout a pastry chef, sweets are a tag-team operation: LeVasseur makes the ice creams and occasional cheesecakes, bar manager Bethany Farrar bakes cakes, and the kitchen staff handles the (yummy) crème brûlées.Pu-Puing ItPiled high with Korean wings, egg rolls, shishito queso with wonton chips, and more, the $47 pu pu platter feeds four to six and is a favorite of the lively happy-hour crowd.To hear LeVasseur tell it, her partner and fiancé, chef Carl, has an omnivorous mind and a tendency to flit from one culinary fascination to another. On a recent date-night visit, the entrées on the seasonally shifting menu ran quite a gamut, from a panko-coated schnitzel to a coconut curry to St. Louis–style ribs with hush puppies to a Caribbean seared red snapper served with sweet-potato latkes. Call it a bit scattered; call it ’00s-style “fusion”; call it, as Birmingham and LeVasseur do, New American. The pair isn’t stressing if it makes the restaurant a little hard to pin down.“I feel like ‘New American’ really means, you know, the big jelly-bean bowl of the whole world that you can pick out of,” Birmingham says. “We don’t want to be put into a box that says, well, you can’t have a pu pu platter on your menu because you’re not Oriental Jade. We can, and we do.”But The Butcher The Baker can play classic notes too, and my wife and I put in orders that showed off both sides of the restaurant’s impulses. Elsa’s cocktail, the Spicy Mother-in-Law, was a spiked lemonade with pomegranate liqueur and cucumber-and-jalapeño–infused tequila, served in a hefty tiki mug. Mine was as basic and ideal a Sazerac — rye, absinthe, sugar, and bitters — as you could hope to order. Our tuna-poke appetizer was riotously smothered in diced cucumber and avocado and togarashi-spiced aioli, served with a pile of crispy fried wontons. A wild-mushroom tart, meanwhile, was an unadorned puff pastry filled with local oyster mushrooms and creamy chèvre and Gruyère — simple, rich, and a real winner.Elsa’s entrée looked like a party: Cajun grilled shrimp with garlic-cheddar grits, a chorizo ragu, and an elote-like succotash of charred corn, cotija cheese, zucchini, and cilantro. It hit tangy, savory, and sweet, and there was enough of it to supply a midnight snack and lunch the next day. I, on the other hand, powered all the way through my perfectly medium-rare 12-ounce strip steak, unembellished but for a too-generous dollop of herbed butter (which might be right up another diner’s alley). Birmingham and LeVasseur have updated the room only a bit: The grand backbar will be familiar to The Fiddlehead patrons, lining the exposed brick of the 1834 building, a former furniture factory. But the once-white ceiling is now a matte black and faux foliage hangs off some new Edison lamps. Wall-mounted speakers, on our visit, pumped ’90s alternative. It was a bit intimidating, LeVasseur says, changing things up from a destination restaurant Bangor knew well. But The Fiddlehead co-owner Laura Peppard gave the incoming restaurateurs some solid advice. “She told us, ‘This is your rodeo — let it be your own thing,’” LeVasseur says. “And we’ve taken that to heart.” Get all of our latest stories delivered straight to your mailbox every month. Subscribe to Down East magazine.</div></body>

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The Butcher The Baker Is a Fun and Tasty Addition to Bangor’s Dining Scene

Before you get cute and ask: no, there is no candlestick maker at downtown Bangor’s The Butcher The Baker. Nor does the name refer neatly to co-owners Carl Birmingham and Brittany LeVasseur — chef and general manager, respectively — who opened the place last year, in the snug Hammond Street space that formerly housed The Fiddlehead Restaurant.

The Butcher The Baker Is a Fun and Tasty Addition to Bangor’s Dining Scene

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