December 10, 2006  The Coastal Journal

“Mae’s Café and Bakery continues in their tradition of gentle excellence”

BATH- Sunday Brunch, in the best sense of the word, is a long, lingering, casual meal, with as many cups of coffee as one could wish, a light but hearty food entrée, such as Portobella Eggs Benedict or Cinnamon French Toast, piled with fresh berries, and the sense that the diner has all the time in the world to spend in a window seat or on the deck watching the world go by, while idly engaging in conversation about books, art, theatre, and politics, or skimming the Sunday New York Times Book Review.  The biggest question of the morning should be, “champagne or no champagne?”

     It should come as no surprise, then , that the successor to Kristina’s, Mae’s Café and Bakery on Centre Street, continues to be an extremely popular brunch destination.  Indeed, it is one of the few places in Bath where Sunday Brunch, in the classic sense, can even be had anymore. 

    Mae’s is also an art gallery.  Local artists show their works, displayed on Mae’s walls.  Each room at Mae’s has a different kind of appeal.  The regular lunch room is an open-windowed affair with bookshelves filled with fun paperbacks while waiting for one’s lunch.  The room is also open at dinner and for brunch.  There is an upstairs room that is occasionally used for brunch and dinner, but is more often used for special parties.  A small room  on the other side of the bakery is also open for lunch, dinner and brunch.  And in fine weather, there is an outdoor deck.  Furniture ranges from classic New England to cozy and funky, depending on where you are seated.

     Mae’s also has a lunch menu and a dinner menu.  The lunch menu features salads and sandwiches that appeal to a palate that is ready for more than iceberg lettuce and sliced tomatoes.  Mae’s signature Tarragon Chicken Salad, for instance, includes a little surprise-red grapes and walnuts, which give the salad a sweet-and-savory flavor sensation.  Try the chicken salad sandwich with one of Mae’s own croissants, as tender and flakey as if you had purchased it from a patisserie in Avignon.

     Freshly made soups are also the order of the day at Mae’s luncheons.  These soups tickle the palate with flavors like butternut squash, lobster chowder and more.

     While brunch and lunch are casual and relaxed, Mae’s dinner is a different animal all together.  Mae’s provides a mix of vegetarian entrees, poultry, fish, and beef.  Each, however, has a distinctive and delicious twist.  Try the Apple Roasted Chicken with a brown sugar curry sauce.  Even something as simple as broiled scallops, a standard Maine dish, is altered under the chef’s ministrations with a lobster sauce and buttery bread crumbs.

     Because Mae’s makes its own excellent baked goods on the premises, desserts are a true joy.  A lunch dessert might be a gingerbread man with chocolate chip eyes, eaten on the way back to work.  And the cookie will be freshly baked and delicious, to be sure.  But if you have time for real dessert, you won’t be sorry.  Try the signature Mocha Hazelnut Dacquoise Torte…be sure to ask for two forks, because you won’t be able to finish this by yourself.

     You can order holiday torten, cakes, cookies, and fresh-baked rolls to take home, too.  Service at Mae’s is cheerful and efficient, coming by at a time when the diner does not have a mouth full of food to ask if anything further is needed, a refreshing change in service!

     Mae' s Cafe is a special-occasion kind of place that will become a tradition for more than Mother’s Day Brunch.

E-mail from recent visitors -

   Hello!  My fiance and I recently visited Bath and stayed at the Inn at Bath.  Elizabeth highly recommended Mae's, so we decided to come for breakfast.  We both fell in love with your place!  The dining room was so clean and bright and the menu and service were fabulous.  Everything we ordered was delicious; we even took home some goodies from your bakery, including the cinnamon bread.  We wish we had a Mae's closer to us in Boston! ...  We have friends who frequent the Bowdoin College area and we have highly recommended Mae's to them.  We look forward to visiting you again!

Sincerely,

S. Miller and B. Kelley

Hi There!
   We're spending a week in the area and found your menu at our rental house up on Kennebec River. We just dropped by and enjoyed a very sumptuous Sunday breakfast! Your establishment is a joy to experience and your wait staff is very attentive and pleasant. We just wanted to let you know how much we enjoyed our first and certainly not our last visit to your cafe! Well Done!
Regards, Jim Young & Ethel Abelson                                       June 3, 2007

Yankee Magazine

            WEEKEND GETAWAYS,  Spring 2005

Peninsular Wanderings in Casco Bay

…Start with a drive to Bath and enjoy Brunch at Mae's Café, a restaurant in two connected houses.  There’s dining outside on the deck as well as in rambling rooms inside.  Whatever your entrée, be sure to sample the famous pecan buns.

Chow MAINE

The Best Restaurants, Cafes, Lobster Shacks &Markets on the Coast

by Nancy English   Countryman Press 2005

>All three meals with a wide choice from a larger menu and excellent baked goods.

Maine Sunday Telegram/ Sunday October 31, 2004
Taste and Tell: C.Z. Cramer

"This summer, Kristina's a dining institution in Bath for 27 years, became Mae's Café. Andy and Katie Winglass purchased the restaurant from Kristina, who has retired."

There is no need to wring your hands over the loss of a good neighborhood restaurant-it's still there. The Winglasses simply renamed the place after their youngest daughter Mae, who is now 3, and then got back to business.

The same sense of airy light and space pervades the pretty interior of the big clapboard mansion on Centre Street.

Interesting artwork hangs on clean white walls, the wooden floors in the first-floor dining room gleam, and the loft dining room upstairs, with its handsome wood paneling, is still a romantic, intimate dining spot.

A pan-seared crab cake was served on a nest of baby red leaf lettuce dressed with a tart lemon vinaigrette. Translucently thin red onion slivers were scattered on top. The arrangement made a sort of warm salad with the tender cake at the center, the crabmeat seasoned with bits of sweet red pepper.

Fish chowder was rich with flavor and full of fish. It was chowder made for cold rainy days along with one of Mae's warm, soft bakery rolls that rendered the packaged oyster crackers superfluous.

Mae's menu carries on the house tradition of good salads and good dressings. The line up that day included Caesar and Greek, mixed greens topped with bleu cheese, walnuts, apple slices and other fall ingredients and a Cobb salad with grilled chicken, bacon, bleu cheese and hard-boiled egg. Bleu cheese, ranch balsamic herb vinaigrette and raspberry vinaigrette dressings were all homemade.

Designer sandwiches ran from tarragon chicken salad on croissant, grilled chicken breast with bacon, avocado, lettuce, tomato and ranch dressing, and a smoked turkey club wrap to a Caldwell Farms beef burger on bulkie roll and a crab melt.

Dinner entrees were straight-forward crowd-pleasers: broiled haddock in white wine butter, grilled duck breast with fruit chutney, grilled steak, chicken and veal. 

Entrees came with bakery rolls, a salad, vegetables and a choice of wild rice or oven roasted potatoes. Thoughtfully chosen, tasty and attractive side dishes that turned main courses into meals were always an added value at this restaurant and they still are.

A gigantic peanut butter and chocolate fudge brownie was so over the top and sweet that it was too much to consider eating at one sitting. For my taste, it was a kids's dessert, but kids come in all age groups, don't they?

Mae's desserts are made daily-you should scrutinize those bakery cases in the entry before making hasty decisions. There are pies and cakes, big saucer-sized cookies plus special confections.

If, like me, you have often stopped over the years at this bakery café on the way from here to there, you will be happy to discover Mae's. Good food at good value is still served all day, and service is as warm and hospitable as ever."

FOOD ***1/2
ATMOSPHERE ****
SERVICE ****

Bottom Line: "A wonderful place to meet and eat, spacious and attractive, where the food is hearty, prices are fair and the in-house bakery adds much to the subject of dessert."