Miami restaurateur Carmen Gonzalez relocates to Maine

Chef Carmen Gonzalez, whose Carmen the Restaurant in Coral Gables made Esquire magazine’s list of best new American restaurants in 2003 and was shuttered by a fire three years later, will have her name on a new eatery in mid-May. That’s when the 40-seat Carmen at The Danforth opens at The Danforth Inn in Portland, Maine. “To be honest with you, I wasn’t thinking about opening another restaurant,” Gonzalez told the Portland Press Herald. “I had just taken that out of my mind. ” Then she struck up a friendship with inn owner Kim Swan and saw the 19th-century Federal-style mansion. “When I went to The Danforth and I just saw the charm and the elegance, I just fell in love with it,” she said. The Puerto Rican-born Gonzalez, 53, has created a Latin-spiced, seafood-centric menu with dishes like Maine lobster fritters, black sea bass ceviche and roast monkfish casserole with yuca mash. She told the newspaper she plans to work at the inn full-time through the fall and then commute from her New York home base.

This story was originally published April 26, 2012 at 12:04 AM with the headline "Miami restaurateur Carmen Gonzalez relocates to Maine."