Women Who Travel Podcast: Erin French on Maine, The Lost Kitchen, and a Mammoth Cross-Country Road Trip

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·24 min read

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Each year, Erin French receives 60,000 postcards from people asking if they can dine at her Maine restaurant The Lost Kitchen. “It really becomes a luck of the draw lottery. We have big post office bins that arrive and we literally reach in, we grab a postcard, we call that person immediately and say, ‘Okay, when do you want to come?’” This episode, Erin shares with Lale what it’s like to experience her beloved restaurant, now in its 11th season, and spills on her new cooking and travel show Getting Lost With Erin French on Max, which sees the chef road trip across the United States in search of new ingredients and inspiration, and sharing meals with Texas farmers, New Orleans chefs, and more.

Lale Arikoglu: Hi there, I'm Lale Arikoglu and this is Women Who Travel.

When I got Erin French, chef and owner of restaurant The Lost Kitchen on the line last week, I'd just gotten back from my own glorious Sunday afternoon in her home state of Maine.

Erin French: It's why we suffer through winters here, days like yesterday.

LA: I mean, it was just magical.

EF: It's incredible. I feel so fortunate to live here and call this place home. But don't ask me that in November or March. I may not say the same answer.

LA: I want to get into your travels and talk about food. But before we go out into the world, obviously I wanted to start where it all began, which is as we're talking about, Maine. Which is where your restaurant, The Lost Kitchen, lives and operates and is where other people travel to for it. Tell me the story.

EF: The story of The Lost Kitchen?

It was really accidental in a way. I was born in Freedom, Maine, tried for the longest time to escape from anywhere Maine, and kept finding myself being pulled back here whether I liked it or not. As the years went on and I got older and hopefully a bit more wiser, I realized that this was an incredible place to call home. I started to lean into it and really celebrate this place of where I was born.

We opened The Lost Kitchen here in Freedom 2014, on, actually, July 4th. We're just celebrating our anniversary.

LA: Happy birthday, Lost Kitchen.

EF: Thank you, so 11 seasons in now and still loving what we're doing. Hard to believe some days. I mean, opening a restaurant in the middle of nowhere in a town of 719 people seemed impossible then. Didn't know if it would survive its first year, and then to make it five years was pretty incredible.

Now to be 11 seasons later, still thriving better than ever and still loving the work we do here. It's an honor and a pleasure to show up at work every day.

LA: The experience of dining at The Lost Kitchen is singular. Erin and her staff aim to make the evening feel both intimate and delightful for every guest.

EF: People arrive around 4:30 in the afternoon because now it's a five-hour dinner. We have about 14 courses. When you first pull into the drive, I mean you'll see the old restored mill, the shingles and the waterfall is flowing right now. I'm sitting right next to it. Maybe you can hear it in the background.

You cross the bridge over the falls and start the evening with something cold and refreshing to drink. We send you down to our wine cellar and send people up with a basket of their selections and get them situated in our dining room.

It's an open kitchen. We do 53 people in the evening. We fill the dining room with flowers and candlelight. Every night we love just throwing the windows open so you can hear the waterfall and feel the breeze come through. Smell the flowers in the air, especially when it's lilac season. The room fills up with all of the scents of everything in the air.

We just lean into an evening of food. People have no idea what they're having for dinner, they're just trusting that it's whatever's fresh for the day. We change the menu every day, which is the fun of it. And the terror of it sometimes too, changing up the menu. Just lean into a full evening of food and make it last as long as we can and try to make it memorable.

LA: But getting in the door for that magical experience is, well, not as straightforward as just making an online reservation or picking up the phone.

EF: Many years ago, it was about our third season here at the restaurant, things had started to blow up. I was terrified. I couldn't keep up with the demand. I mean, we used to take all of our reservations pencil and paper. You would call in, we would take your name, we'd figure out your date.

The only way that I could think to slow down the reservation process was not to go online, but to have people just send a postcard. We will pull your card, we'll give you a call, and I had no idea what that would turn into. Here we are all these years later and we receive about 60,000 postcards a year, and we have about 500 tables for the season that we offer.

It really becomes a luck of the draw lottery. We have big post office bins that arrive and we literally reach in, we grab a postcard, we call that person immediately and say, "Okay, when do you want to come?" The first person who gets the first poll says they can come whenever they want. They pick their date, they pick their table. If you're the last card, then we call and say, "Okay, we have one table left in September on whatever that date is," and they decide if they want to come or not. It's really just by luck of the draw.

LA: You mentioned that for a long time, which I think is a lot of people in regards to where they grow up, that you kept on trying to escape Maine and then it would pull you back in.

What is it about Maine that you started to see with clarity that was full of possibility and made you want to stay there?

EF: For me, it was really the natural beauty, knowing even that you had the most incredible food all around you. I grew up in farmland and I didn't appreciate it when I was younger.

And then to go out into the world and see different places and come home and, go, "Oh my gosh, all of this incredible food was around me the whole time." To embrace those childhood moments of being able to go out in the garden barefoot and dig potatoes fresh with your hands. Go straight into the kitchen and boil them and cover them with butter and salt and pepper and have it be the most delicious thing you've ever had in your life.

LA: The current restaurant is a re-blossoming of an original concept you had. Can you tell me a little bit about the path from the beginning of stepping into operating a restaurant and the current iteration of The Lost Kitchen?

EF: When I was turning 30 years old, I was having this panic of, what am I doing with my life? What am I contributing? What am I creating? I had something burning inside of me just feeling like I needed to be using my hands. I needed to create something.

The only thing I really felt confident about was cooking because I had grown up in rural Maine and my father owned a diner. And so I learned to cook at a very young age, and I said at 30 years old, "I'm going to give this a whirl." I'm going to make food that feels like me, and I started a secret supper club in the second-story apartment that I had in Belfast. I would open up my kitchen on Saturday evenings to 24 strangers every Saturday and serve these four and five course dinners.

I started to think, "Well, this can only last so long. This is an illegal supper club. If I really want to do this, I'm going to have to make a real restaurant out of it." And so within a year and a half, I had secured a space and started the first version of The Lost Kitchen. And that was it. My restaurant career began in that moment.

What's funny, when I first opened the restaurant, people would ask me, "What kind of food is it going to be?" I couldn't quite understand that question because I just thought, well, what do you mean? It's just going to be real food. To me, that was the food that I could get at the farmer's market, or the food that was grown from the farmer down the street.

I know when you think of Maine, you think of lobster, but the funny thing for us is that if you find lobster on the menu at the Lost Kitchen, it means something went severely wrong here. Because it means that we had to run out to the lobster pound to make up for something that didn't show up.

LA: I love that.

EF: Because I don't want people to believe that it's like it's all blueberries and lobster because it's not. It's so rich: the seafood, the produce, the flowers. It's so bountiful. And especially this time of year right now, it's like we're just coming into the perfect time of year as strawberries and raspberries and peaches will be on the way soon. New potatoes and bluefin tuna that we've been serving here, that's been the most gorgeous fish you've ever seen in your life.

We're just so fortunate. I could not be the cook I am without the ingredients that we have in Maine. It's like I've told my husband, who I imported from New York City here, and now he's sold for life, is that if you never left the state borders here, you could do something different and incredible every day of your life. See something new, go somewhere unique and have rich experiences throughout the state. I mean, whether it's the lakes or the oceans or the mountains and everything in between.

I want to tame it down, though. I shouldn't be screaming about how much I love Maine because I don't-

LA: I mean, you're really selling and-

EF: I have to be careful with that.

LA: You get people traveling pretty far to come to your restaurant. What does it feel like to be a destination?

EF: Part of it is extremely terrifying because we do have people that are traveling from all over the country to come here for dinner. And so there is that pressure to show up and create this evening that people are coming with the highest expectations you could possibly imagine for what they're hoping for is going to be one of the greatest meals of their lives.

We're that much better of cooks because we've wanted to rise to this occasion. We're that much better as servers and hostess to rise and make that occasion for people who are showing up with that expectation.

LA: After the break, Erin hits the road searching for inspiration.

We've been talking about people traveling thousands of miles to come and see you, but I do want to transition into your own travels, especially your new show Getting Lost. You embarked on this huge cross-country journey to find inspiration. I think for food, but also it feels like just creatively in general.

Where did you go, and have you always had that impulse to travel? I mean, I know you wanted to escape Maine for some time.

EF: Yeah, I mean, what a dream for me to travel the country. And it was something that my husband, Michael, and I had always had the dream of doing.

For me, I grew up in rural Maine and I never traveled. I grew up working at my dad's diner, so the summers were filled with being behind the fry later or working the dairy bar. And then to be older now and be running my own restaurant... Maine is very seasonal, so we do close for the winter and that's the time when we fill ourselves back up after what is a long and stressful season of just grinding it at the restaurant.

To take that time and to get out and to explore different food and go places I had never been before... I mean, we went to New Orleans. I'd never been to New Orleans before. We went to Texas and Arizona and then all the way up the California coast to Oregon and through Idaho. We did 10,000 miles in three in a 26-foot Airstream.

LA: That is a complicated trip to plot out on a map. 10,000 miles.

EF: Yes, and imagine the complications of traveling with your husband. We're still speaking to each other, so we're really happy about that.

LA: I mean, that's a miracle. If you've got that, then you guys are solid.

EF: Forever. I mean, we came home and was like, "Okay, we're in this for life now."

We were traveling in the Airstream and road life is a whole different thing. I mean, there are these beautiful moments. There are these stressful moments. It tests you as a couple, it tests you personally, and you learn a lot about yourself along the way.

Part of the fun was sometimes we never knew where we were going to spend the night. I mean, we're driving and it was just about, okay, we have to get somewhere by sundown. Where is that going to be? And so my husband would be driving and I'd be navigating and trying to find a spot. There were some times where it's like we'd show up. I just reserved this place an hour in advance. And we're in this pristine, picturesque park area, and the woman who's checking us in to camp on her property comes down with fresh eggs. You're like, is this real?

Another of the moments where you're like, okay, I think we've been living on beef jerky and gummy bears for the past 36 hours.

LA: And I imagine you are like, "I'm literally doing this trip as a chef to get inspiration for food and my diet is beef jerky."

EF: Some days. I mean, sometimes you just needed some beef jerky.

But on the flip side, when we were making the stops along the way, the food we had was just absolutely incredible. The people we met along the way were inspirational. And that's really what this journey and this show was all about, was following us trying to find this inspiration as a cook.

Because my biggest fear, and I think anyone who cooks might have a similar fear, is that you wake up one morning and you have nothing in your brain. You have no idea what to cook. I'm always terrified that that's going to happen at some point. To try to avoid that, for me, this was like, I'm not going to sit here and wait for this inspiration to come and find me. I'm going to go out and I'm going to find it, and I'm going to just follow the road. I'm going to taste flavors I've never tasted before.

I mean, growing up in small town, rural Maine, to be able to pick an avocado off of a tree was mind-blowing for me. Or to find fresh citrus at a farmer's market was just like an incredible moment. Those were the things that we were seeking out, those different flavors and meeting new people. Coming home full and ready to start a whole new restaurant season again and bring our best selves and continue to learn, which is half the fun of being a cook is the learning is never ending.

LA: I'm going to take us back to the Airstream for a minute. What was it like to cook out of it on the road? You must have had to have gotten pretty creative and really adapted some of your cooking skills to that space and its limitations.

EF: Yes. Oh yes, definitely.

I'll tell you, the packing for that trip took quite a lot of effort. I remember I filled up this entire table in our dining room here, and I looked at it and I said, "This is never going to fit." I had to start to hone down and really think about everything that I was bringing with me and make sure I know I'm going to use it.

I had one bottom drawer in the Airstream that was filled with cast iron because it was the heaviest load that was just sitting at the back of the trailer. I did not economically pack it, but I packed it with all the things I definitely needed.

We did a lot of outdoor cooking, which was really helpful. We threw a couple of grills in the back of the trucks. We were toting all of that around. But there definitely was a creativity that had to be tapped into. It was an air fryer that was in the Airstream. Baking became a really big deal, and I learned how to bake on a Weber grill. That was definitely a unique moment was figuring out how to bake on the road.

LA: Is there a person or a place that made it into the show that you are particularly excited to share with viewers? Can you tell me a little bit about it?

EF: Wow. It's really hard to pick one person because there were so many people that literally stopped me in my tracks, that they were just so incredible, so many that come to mind.

I mean, one was this woman, Mosheet, who was in Boise, Idaho making the most incredible croissants you've ever had in your life. You wouldn't think that you would find that in Boise, Idaho.

To find this woman Thalia, who I met, who is making blue corn scones heritage from her land in the Sonoran Desert. Melissa Martin down in the bayou of just generations deep of cooking from the Bayou. She had a a similar story of she also tried to run away, I don't want to live in New Orleans. I don't want to live in the Bayou. I'm going to go to California and learn how to cook.

And then realized everything she ever needed was in her backyard and the best food she ever tasted was what her grandmother made for her. And so she's been leaning into making this comfort Cajun food. Just finding people who were creating their own food, forging their own paths, and doing that in a place that mattered to them deeply.

LA: We're going to take another short break. But when we return, Erin brings her travel inspiration back to The Lost Kitchen.

You are now back in Maine. The season is in full swing. What have you learned from that trip that you're bringing into this season and onto the menu, and also into the experience of how you are hosting and people are gathering with you?

EF: Well, it was funny because something I realized at the end of this trip was there was a consistent message across the board from everyone that I met, and every incredible dish or entree that we had along the way, was that everything that was incredible was made with love. It was made from a place of people would say, "This is what my grandma used to do. This is how she used to create it." It was in creation because people were taking memories from their moments of their lives and creating food that answered the question why.

That they weren't just making it to win an award. They were making food with a feeling and they were using nostalgia to create that feeling. And so as I'm creating my menus this year, more than ever I'm leaning into that, answering that question why.

Even if we're serving a fried donut here, it's like, yeah, it's a donut. But for me, that donut matters because when I bite into it and I taste that nutmeg and I taste that hot bite of donut, it's crispy on the outside, it tastes like the donut my grandmother used to make. It's evoking those memories. If I can share that memory with someone at my table, it's like I'm passing that moment and that memory on.

And so I'm thinking about the dishes that I'm making and they have to answer the question why. It always comes down to grandma. It's like it really comes down to grandma.

LA: You mentioned a little earlier on about losing your first restaurant, which we haven't really gotten into yet, and I know you've written about and talked about quite a lot. Could you just share a little bit about that experience and what happened? And then really what your path was to, I think, injecting so much of what you've described into The Lost Kitchen before this trip?

EF: Well, I'll keep you the short version of it because there's an entire memoir about the fall down of my life.

I'd started my supper club, turned into a restaurant, and ended up going through a pretty terrible time in my life that included divorce, addiction, custody battles, I mean, just a life implosion. That was where I lost my first restaurant in that battle and where I picked up all the pieces, moved back to my hometown of Freedom, found a very old and dilapidated 1965 Airstream, gutted it, turned it into a makeshift kitchen, traveled around to keep myself going. Until I found my next space here in Freedom, where we've been for 11 seasons now.

I can look back on those moments. People have asked me, "What would you change about it?" The truth is I would change nothing because needed to go through those hard moments and that struggle to be able to get right here, right now. Feel fortunate to have survived and to have gotten through it all and to be here now in Freedom.

LA: You mentioned the 1965 Airstream, which makes me think that this show and this trip is a bit of a full circle moment to be taking an Airstream out on the road. Who's the chef that's in the Airstream now compared to the one when you first began rebuilding your life?

EF: Well, she's a lot less broken. I've come a long way. I've gained a lot of confidence.

I was very weak, very broken in those first Airstream days, and I used that Airstream as my vessel, as a life buoy, to keep me rolling when I had lost everything. I mean, that Airstream kept me moving. It kept me feeling hopeful. Realizing that for a while when I lost that first restaurant, I was so devastated because I had worked so hard to secure the space that my restaurant was in. When I lost it, I really thought that I had lost everything and that it was the end.

The Airstream really taught me that it was never the walls of that restaurant that were defining me as a cook, that I could cook on the road. I could cook with wheels underneath me. It was really about me as a cook and what I was bringing to the table. It didn't matter where I was doing that, whether it was in a field or on the beach or on a picnic table. That's where the heart of a cook is.

The cook can make the space feel warm and inviting, but shouldn't matter where you're creating that meal. It's really about how you're creating it and who you're creating it for. This lap around the country felt a lot more celebratory being in the Airstream.

LA: With that in mind, are you itching to get back on the road? I mean, I'm sure you are knee-deep in the season right now, but are you starting to think about where could you go next winter or the next time you have this chunk of free time?

EF: Yeah, that's always the conversation that comes up in October. We're in the thick of the season right now, and anyone who is in hospitality in any seasonal place like Maine, we're neck deep. We are just treading until we get through to October.

And then immediately once the restaurant closes for the season, we start thinking about, okay, how are we going to fill ourselves back up and get ready for another season? Come October, I'm sure we'll be dreaming big about where we'll be going next.

LA: I love that you said how are we going to fill ourselves back up. It sounds like traveling is the fuel you need for coming back for the summer.

EF: Yeah, we always say you should always go out to eat at the restaurants if you know the chef has just been on vacation somewhere because you're going to have the best meal after that. They're coming home rested. They're inspired.

LA: Love it. What a pro-tip. I don't know how I'm going to get access to these chefs' calendars, but I'm going to start doing digging on my favorite spots.

You pulled off a pretty impressive road trip, I would say. For people who want to embark on something similar, I don't know if they're going to do three months and 10,000 miles, but how did you find the places and plot it out on the map? What's your advice?

EF: Oh, yeah. For me, I was dreaming about places that I wanted to see, places I wanted to go. We started with those touch points, but we left a lot open and loose so that we could have those sort of discoveries, too.

That I didn't want it to feel that the whole thing was planned out and we had to hit X, Y, and Z. Sure, we had these spots to hit, but we also had a little bit of freedom for surprise and discovery along the way, which I think is part of the joy traveling.

LA: Erin, thank you so much for sharing your travel stories and the story of The Lost Kitchen. Congratulations on developing such a beautiful story and your new show.

EF: Thank you.

LA: I will 100% be writing my postcard and sending it in and hoping that I've become one of those 500 sittings that get to visit.

If people want to follow along with your travels and your cooking, where can they find you on the internet?

EF: You can find our website. We're at findthelostkitchen.com and @thelostkitchen on Instagram.

LA: Thank you for listening to Women Who Travel. I'm Lale Arikoglu, and you can find me on Instagram @lalehannah. Our engineers are Jake Lummus and James Yost. The show is mixed by Amar Lal at Macro Sound. Michele O'Brien produced this episode. Stephanie Kariuki is our executive producer. Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's head of global audio.

Next week, an expert backpacker fresh off her own trip to Patagonia teaches us how to get out into the wilderness for the first time. We'll see you then.

Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler

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