Maine Ingredients Are The Cliff House’s Recipe For Success

Ogunquit, MAINE – Combining fresh, Maine ingredients and reducing oils and fats from recipes and sauces are two ways Executive Chef Eric Delano of the Cliff House Resort & Spa (www.cliffhousemaine.com) in Ogunquit, Maine provides guests with healthy menu choices.

Chef Delano uses lobsters pulled from Atlantic waters, wild blueberries harvested from Downeast hillsides, and potatoes harvested from Aroostook County fields. Says Deanne Herman, marketing manager at the Maine Department of Agriculture, “Chefs nationwide are discovering their patrons desire for a local food experience and the quality that sourcing locally provides. Maine offers the best of land and sea-meats, cheeses and seasonal produce-from over 6,000 family farms.”

Serving fresh produce has been a Cliff House tradition for 132 years. Resort founder Elsie Jane Weare served food from the adjacent family farm. Chef Delano carries on that practice by stocking his kitchen with Maine grown produce from more than 20 local producers. This season The Cliff House anticipates serving 6,500 lobsters, 1,500 bushels of clams, 2,000 pounds of blueberries and 2,100 salmon.

“The Cliff House Clam Chowder symbolizes the roots of the Resort where Elsie Jane put this popular recipe on the menu in 1872. Guests enjoy it to this day,” remarked Chef Delano. “The Cliff House version contains native clams and corn but no tomatoes – a classic New England tradition.”

Maine seafood has always had a place on the Resort’s dining tables. In the late 1800s, after a storm lobsters stranded on the cliff were picked up, boiled, and served cold as a side dish sprinkled with vinegar.

Spinney Creek Oyster Company of Cape Neddick, Maine and Portland-based Harbor Fish Market provide the seafood for the Resort’s Lobster Sauté in Hazelnut Crumbs, North Atlantic Haddock and Blueberry Halibut. The Smoked Salmon Sushi Salad Roll’s main ingredient comes from Ducktrap River Fish Farm of Belfast, Maine.