FREEDOM, Maine — Update: The Lost Kitchen in Freedom is now accepting postcards for this year’s reservations. During the month of April, the staff will be pulling postcards at random. If your card is pulled, they will give you a call to make a reservation.
Dinner for the 2024 season is $265 per person, not including tax, gratuity, or drinks. When sending a postcard, you need to include your name, address, phone number, and email address. The restaurant also asks that you write “2024” in the top left corner.
Postcards can be mailed to:
The Lost Kitchen
22 Mill St.
Freedom, ME 04941
Fame has its drawbacks, particularly if one becomes famous for preparing superb meals in an acclaimed restaurant. Erin French, the owner and chef of The Lost Kitchen in Freedom, isn’t complaining, but she has seen a few things change in her life since her culinary reputation shot into the stratosphere.
"No one invites me over anymore," she acknowledged with a smile. "That is kind of the tragedy of it."
It’s understandable. After all, if your neighbor were a wildly successful chef with an astoundingly popular restaurant, would you invite her over for some crackers and dip from the convenience store?
"The unfortunate thing is if they only knew that I really just love a cheeseburger and a bag of chips," French said. "That would be like my dream come true for an evening."
As The Lost Kitchen approaches its 10th anniversary, its popularity shows no sign of diminishing. Several years ago, after the demand for reservations actually fried the restaurant’s phones, French switched to an unconventional system. Would-be diners must now send in a postcard asking for a reservation, and the winners are drawn at random. In 2023, some 70,000 postcards poured in.
All of this success, along with her TV show on the Magnolia Network and the recent publication of her second cookbook, "Big Heart Little Stove," came not by happenstance but through extraordinarily hard work. A 17-hour workday is routine for French.
"My grandmother was a hard worker and my mother’s a hard worker and my father was a hard worker and everyone before me," French said. "I think it was really instilled in me at a young age … that it’s just the way you do things. And I don’t know any other way now."
Given her success, does the idea of easing up on work have any appeal?
"We do have an ongoing joke around the house that my foot is on the pedal, I’m at 90 miles an hour all the time, and my husband Michael is constantly pumping the brakes a little bit in the side seat," she said. "He’s trying to keep up and I’m trying to keep it moving. And he’s patiently slowing me down once in a while."
Note: The first part of our 207 interview with Erin French will be broadcast on Jan. 8. The second part will air on Jan. 9.
Part 1
Part 2
Erin French makes scones
