A couple of major beachfront restaurants in Hancock County are getting a new but familiar look from a New York City eatery.
Max Katzenberg, who has worked at a Michelin-starred restaurant and owns two highly acclaimed restaurants in Brooklyn, recently acquired Harbor Cafe in downtown Stonington and plans to reopen Dennett Wharf on the waterfront in Kasten next month.
While Katzenberg, who previously spent summers in Maine and moved to Deer Island during the pandemic, brings big-city credentials and acclaimed chefs to the two projects, he and his team have promised to focus on upgrading what have already made two great local favorites.
For Café Harbor, a homey spot for locals and tourists alike, this largely meant a new coat of paint and a new recipe book that brought in more local ingredients but kept the classics.
“It’s always going to be that greasy spoon, the diner environment,” Katzenberg said of Harbor Cafe. “We just wanted to raise it in the right ways.”
Katzenberg cuts his teeth in the restaurant industry at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a Michelin-starred restaurant north of New York City. There he learned about Stonington and Deer Isle’s famous seafood, and went on to source the island’s catch for his restaurant Olmsted, a 2017 James Beard finalist.
Although he’s now preparing for the summer crowds and finalizing Dennett’s, Katzenberg initially didn’t plan to leave the Big Apple dining scene for the Pine Tree State.
When he and his wife Chloe, who was pregnant at the time with their son David, moved to Deer Isle in April 2020, Katzenberg was still entrusted with Olmsted and his other restaurant, Maison Yaki in New York.
But when he learned that Harbor Cafe was for sale, he decided to partner with his friend and Deer Isle dining expert Matt Spector to buy the place to prevent the city from losing Main Street fixtures.
“Nobody in the community, including us, wants the café to go anywhere,” Katzenberg said. “It really is a community enterprise. I almost see myself as a café server rather than an owner.”
He and Specter have made some tweaks to the menu—they changed the pie recipe after turning on 30 different options—and try to highlight local catches wherever they can.
By the end of 2021, Katzenberg had left Olmsted and Maison Yaki. However, he still has some peripheral involvement in other projects in New York.
When he and Specter pulled Harbor Cafe off the grounds, a friend reached out to see if Katzenberg knew of anyone who might be interested in taking over Dennett’s Wharf, a restaurant and bar along the closed Castine waterfront.
Although he didn’t plan to get involved with this restaurant either, I sensed a great opportunity to revive the classic old school community with the help of friend Ingrid Baronich and Taylor Hester, former head chef at Olmsted.
There he hopes to create a fun hangout with fresh seafood.
“We want it to be accessible to everyone,” he said. “I think people will get out of it.”