What better place to savor fresh, delicious creations than in a garden? Our Kitchen Garden Series offers expert instruction and a chance to enjoy delicious foods, some fresh from our own Burpee Kitchen Garden. The Gardens’ café and Kitchen Garden Terrace overlooking the Central Gardens are inviting spaces in which to enjoy a snack or lunch and to learn about food and cooking.
A Series of Classes and Dinners
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens’ Kitchen Garden Series consists of master cooking classe, demos, and specialty dinners hosted at the Gardens, as well as field trips to sites and restaurants irresistible to "foodies." We hope to not only promote our own Burpee Kitchen Garden, but also to encourage kitchen gardeners everywhere.
In a society where the consumer buys salad in a bag and any kind of fruit at any time of year, it has become increasingly easy to forget where our food comes from and how good it tastes when it is fresh. The Gardens, through this series, seeks to do its part to change this thinking and to remind visitors what it means to reap (and eat!) what you sow.
With the help of chefs, food writers, and other experts, the Gardens tempts your taste buds with fresh, organic, local/regional produce in our exclusive dinners and, in our master classes, provides you the know-how to go home and do it yourself.
Each dinner and class further engages participants through educational materials. Menus enrich your mind as well as your sense of taste. Whether through trivia or through brief descriptions and images, food comes alive as you learn about what you’re eating, where it came from, how it grows and what part of the plant you are enjoying.
The Kitchen Garden Café
A curved wall of windows overlooking the Central Gardens, a menu of sumptuous choices made from fresh, seasonal foods, and a relaxing atmosphere make the Kitchen Garden Café at the Gardens a favorite – and most refreshing – stop for a snack or lunch. An alternative to indoor dining is the adjacent Kitchen Garden Terrace, with its backdrop of a graceful stone wall and elegant gardens. Both are at the Visitor Center. The café is also the setting for special events and demonstrations.
Friday 8/15: SOLD OUT: Dinner by Rob Evans of Hugo’s Restaurant (8/15) 6:00pm