Guests dine on the terrace at Wander at Longwoods in Cumberland. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer When is a restaurant not really a restaurant? When, like Wander at LongWoods Preserve, it is only one independent-yet-interdependent element of a much larger, conservation-and-community-oriented whole. Take a gander at the 54.
5-acre preserve’s website to see what I mean: “Part working farm, part nature retreat, part sculpture garden, part event venue, part farm to table restaurant and terrace ...
” it announces, inviting visitors to owner Alan Timpson’s privately owned, Chebeague & Cumberland Land Trust and Maine Farmland Trust easement property. It also claims that the project “defies description.” I’ll give it a shot.
On second thought, I’ll delegate that job to my server at Wander, who pointed to the collage-like logo printed on the dinner menu, and explained, “If you look, you can see the man’s face, his beard and hair, it’s all plants and vegetables,” she said. “He’s our mascot, and he’s just like the restaurant: put together like a big mosaic of Maine foods.” The edible patchwork logo is Wander’s nod to a Green Man, a mythical personification of humanity’s place in the natural world, dating back to 16th century England.
Today, similar “foliate heads” have become widespread symbols of conservation and environmentalism, even gaining enough traction to merit a spot on King Charles’ coronation invitations in 2023. Megan Achille and her nep.