For the second year in a row, the New York Times has named a rural Maine restaurant to its annual list of the 50 best restaurants in the country.
The Alna Store, a restaurant and market in the Lincoln County town of Alna, was named the sole Maine pick in a list that includes 28 states in total.
It follows on the heels of last year’s inclusion of Tinder Hearth, a bakery and pizza restaurant in the Hancock County town of Brooksville, on the same list.
The Alna Store opened in the 700-person town in late 2022, and is owned by Jasper Ludwig and chef Brian Haskins. Ludwig is a native of the neighboring town of Newcastle who already owned a successful market and cafe, 5 Points, in Tucson, Arizona, with her partner, Haskins. The store itself had been a staple of the town for decades.
The market sells a mixture of classic convenience store stuff and gourmet items. House-baked breads and pastries and an array of fermented goodies like kimchi and sauerkraut come out of the kitchen. The dinner menu is small — seven small plates and four large plates, composed mostly of local ingredients — and is served from 4 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. A popular brunch is also served midday Friday through Sunday. The bar serves fancy cocktails alongside beer and wine, and the store retained its deer-tagging license.
The Alna Store was named a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Restaurant this year. Longtime New York Times food writer Melissa Clark, in her writeup for the 2024 best restaurants list, praised the store as an “ambitious restaurant [that] serves a thoroughly of-the-moment, local menu that’s full of sophisticated touches without being at all pretentious.”
Former Alna Store chef Devin Dearden left the store this summer to open his own restaurant, Winona, in Camden with his partner, Hannah Adams.
