FEAST – JAN/FEB 2008

By Joshua Bodwell

Photography Benedetta Spinelli

Five Fifty-Five is under new management. And the new manager is a demanding leader—he may be less than two-feet tall, but when eight-month-old Seamus Alain Corry wants to eat, he wants to eat. Luckily for Seamus, his father is the nationally acclaimed chef Steve Corry and his mother is the front-of-house phenom, Michelle Corry.

While the addition of Seamus to the Corry family this past summer was unquestionably the highlight of their year, 2007 was also marked by several life-changing highs for the couple. In July, Food & Wine magazine named Steve to their list of 10 Best New Chefs. Then, on the cusp of November, the James Beard Foundation flew the Corrys to Las Vegas so that Steve could prepare a seven-course meal for more than 100 guests as part of the foundation’s Celebrity Chef Tour. And—between bottle feedings and the pureeing of squash, apples, and pumpkin—the Corry’s have been serving up meals to a packed house seven days a week at Five Fifty-Five.

After a little more than four years in business, the recent deluge of accolades for Five Fifty-Five are the culmination of years of dedication and attention to the minutiae of the dining experience. With Michelle acting as the front-of-house ying to Steve’s back-kitchen yang, the hallmarks of dining at Five Fifty-Five are food and service that are utterly confident yet entirely unpretentious.

Pan Seared Diver Scallops

butter-melted wild mushrooms, oven roasted celeriac puree

Although they both were born, bred, and educated on the East Coast, Steve and Michelle Corry met out west under the bright lights of San Francisco, and their courtship was the classic restaurant story: boy is brewmaster at brew pub; girl is waitress at same; marriage is inevitable.

By the late 1990s, the Corry’s grew homesick for their friends and family back east. After they returned and took up residence in an aunt’s lake house, Steve—who had been working in kitchens since high school—began cooking at the Moose Crossing restaurant in Falmouth. With the promise of funding, the couple made plans to open a brew pub in North Conway, New Hampshire—but, just as quickly as it had been promised, the investors pulled out and the deal fell apart.

Fortunately for all those who love great food, Steve had already decided to attend the New England Culinary Institute in Burlington, Vermont, figuring that he would take his gastronomy skills up a notch. Through an externship during his second year at the Institute, Steve landed a job at Napa Valley’s acclaimed Domaine Chandon.

Long Island Duck Confit “Tart”

farmer’s market greens, brown butter-sage vinaigrette, sparrow arc organic cranberries

At Domaine Chandon, under the tutelage of Chef Robert Curry, Steve was exposed to not only world-class wines but also to the pleasures of working with a mix of exotic and local ingredients. Highly sought-after wasabi root, truffles, and other delicacies arrived daily. It was while working at Domaine Chandon that Steve took to heart the belief that local produce and meats should be the core of a truly great menu—it’s a philosophy he carries with him to this day.

As Steve gained invaluable culinary know-how, Michelle, already armed with a degree in hotel management from Boston University, got priceless firsthand experience working the dining room at French Laundry, the world-class restaurant located across the street from Domaine Chandon.

But like a multi-course meal in which every new dish is more tantalizing than the last, the couple was again offered funding to open a restaurant of their own, this time in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And, once again, they moved back across the country. When this second restaurant deal collapsed, just as the first one had years earlier, the Corrys amazingly landed on their feet yet again: Steve began cooking at Kennebunkport’s White Barn Inn before becoming the sous chef at its sister restaurant, Grissini, while Michelle began working the front of the house in one of the best restaurants in Maine, Arrows in Ogunquit.

A year and a half later, on Steve’s birthday in 2003, the couple finally took the promise of running their own restaurant into their own hands. They purchased a fully equipped restaurant space at 555 Congress Street in Portland and threw themselves into creating their dream restaurant, Five Fifty-Five.

Herb-Marinated Prime Sirloin Steak

truffled “tater tos,” foie gras-cabernet glaze

“Some people thought we were crazy to open outside the Old Port,” remembers Michelle. After recounting the five grueling weeks in which the couple renovated, painted, hired a staff, built a wine list, and created a menu, Michelle pauses for a moment. “In hindsight,” she laughs, “maybe we were crazy!”

Over the next year, the Corrys lived in a kitchen-less third-floor studio apartment above Five Fifty-Five and, purely through word-of-mouth, built a dedicated following. Ever since, the restaurant’s reputation and success have continued to blossom. This past summer, thanks to a nomination from Chef Rob Evans of Hugo’s Restaurant in Portland, Steve landed on Food & Wine’s 10 Best New Chefs list (Evans, a former James Beard Award nominee, had won the Food & Wine award in 2004, which allowed him to nominate other chefs).

More than anything, the nod from Food & Wine helped make Five Fifty-Five exactly what Steve and Michelle always intended: a culinary destination. “The accolade of “Best New Chef” is a little misleading though,” says Steve. “That award is really for the whole restaurant, and therefore the whole staff.”

Today, dining at Five Fifty-five is an atmospheric epicurean experience. The walls are coated in a muted, chocolate-mousse-brown paint; the reflection of candles glimmer in the accents of copper on the tables, walls, and above the open kitchen. The setting feels both subdued and magical.

This perfect stage has given Steve the freedom to experiment in the kitchen and roll out playful dishes, such as his signature Truffled-Lobster “Mac & Cheese,” which includes a mix of hand-rolled torchio pasta, artisanal cheese sauce, imported black truffles, white-truffle oil, and, of course, Maine lobster.

Shelburn Farms Cheddar Fondue

Snell Farm’s crispin apples, house-baked “butter bread”

Last year, the Corrys burst through the wall of Five Fifty-Five, took over the adjoining building, and added the Point Five Lounge. The nearly 1,000 square feet of additional space has allowed them to add a new bar area, more space for walk-ins, and an affordably priced “bar” menu, plus a room for pastry chef Andrew Warren in the back and a new wine cellar downstairs.

While Five Fifty-Five’s physical growth is obvious to the eye, Corry’s growth in the kitchen is just as obvious to the palate. His dishes have grown rapidly in their confidence and complexity. The menu evolves daily, undergoes major changes weekly, and is reinvented seasonally. Corry says that the Food & Wine award has created even greater trust among his customers and regulars—requests for Steve’s five-course tasting menus are coming in more frequently than ever. He is also feeling greater freedom to create bold, experimental combinations that balance intricate ingredients and tastes.

Lately, Steve’s own taste has been leaning toward the cheesy, and Five Fifty-Five now offers a menu of cheeses from around Maine and the world. In a play on the infamous quote by culinary guru James Beard—“I believe that if I ever had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough tarragon around”—Steve just might be able to consume his fellow man were there enough artisanal cheese at hand.

As he both happily and modestly rides the wave of accolades he has garnered this year, Steve is exploring all his kitchen interests by joining forces with Tom Landry of CornerStone Building & Restoration, which handled the renovation of Point Five Lounge, to act as the star chef designer for Landry’s residential kitchen projects.

Pear Three-Ways

port-poached pear cake with honeyed mascarpone, house-churned honey-pear ice cream, pear-currant compote

It’s quite telling that when Steve Corry is asked what he admired most about his culinary mentor, Chef Robert Curry at Domaine Chandon, he responds that Curry was extremely “creative and competent, yet always down to earth.” It’s a line that seems a perfect description for the proprietors of Five Fifty-Five themselves.

The Corry’s have taken everything they learned over the years and refined that knowledge into a dining experience that is at once exceptional and unstuffy. The food produced and plated at Five Fifty-Five is as fine and elegant as any restaurant in the state, but it is the understated style in which the food is presented that makes Five Fifty-Five truly unique.

“We’ve been really lucky,” says Michelle of the restaurant’s success, as she bounces young Seamus on her knee until the lad works out a wholly satisfying belch that both parents then roundly applaud. But luck, of course, is beside the point. As we all know, in the restaurant world, as in life itself, we each make our own luck. Hard work, dedication, perseverance, and forging ahead even when buffeted by the warnings of naysayers—that is what “luck” is made of. At Five Fifty-Five, the owners are committed to serving up some of the most delicious luck Maine has to offer.

[*Editor’s Note: The dishes used as sub-headlines within this piece are from a five-course tasting menu that Chef Corry created one gorgeous, rainy night in late October.]

Five Fifty-Five’s Truffled Cauliflower and Mascarpone Soup

4 heads cauliflower (cored and rough-chopped)

4 spanish onions (thinly sliced)

1 bulb garlic

2 qt. water

3 qt. heavy cream

8 oz. parmesan cheese

8 oz .mascarpone

white truffle oil (to garnish)

chives (snipped)

salt to taste

Gently sweat onions and garlic in a large stainless steel pot. Add cauliflower, water, and the heavy cream. Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30-40 minutes. Puree ingredients in a blender adding parmesan and mascarpone. Add water as needed to thin. Add salt to taste. Garnish with a drizzle of truffle oil and snipped chives. Makes 8-12 servings.

fivefifty-five.com