CORNER TABLE

Moonlight Sonata

Joseph’s by the Sea brings romance back to the seashore.

BY COLIN W. SARGENT

In2021, Old Orchard Beach’s grand dame of special occasions, Joseph’s by the Sea, su ered a devestating re.

Many predicted this institution would go to Maine restaurant heaven, joining the likes of e Grist Mill, Windows on the Water, and Cascades. Few businesses recover from the additional blow of incineration during the COVID era; most become a fond memory.

Jump-cut to a whirlwind transformation. Picture this: night dresses up Old Orchard Beach, bathed in moonlight. When we reach 55 West Grand Avenue, we’re already excited by the idea of a romantic roo op meal. e previous restaurateurs had already installed the deck when the new owners purchased it at the beginning of 2021. As we’re led to our seats with fantastic views of the Hunter’s Moon, we ask our server why we were so lucky to have this beautiful place come back from the dead.

“ e owners, Scott and Barb, are resilient,” she says. “It was an 11-month restoration from last July to this June. It made us more of a family.”

Bravo!

We warm our hands with a hot buttered rum ($13) and our hearts with a glass of Piattelli Malbec ($15). e beach is pristine, cool, and dramatically lit from this high vantage. Our personal celestial orb races through the gathering wisps of clouds accompanied by an astonishingly bright Jupiter. We’re on a cruise ship in the opening scene of a lm noir, looking out into eternity.

For starters, we enjoy an Autumn Salad of roasted red beets and parsnips, candied walnuts, spinach and arugula, dried cranberries, and gorgonzola crumbles with maple balsamic vinaigrette ($9) and Lobster Potato Pancakes ($18) with green onions and a chipotle crème fraîche. en the rst nostalgic song comes on: “Lowdown,” from the Silk Degrees album by Boz Scaggs, and the evening picks up. I enjoy the Pasta Maison ($30), with shrimp, scallops, salmon, mussels, sun-dried tomatoes, and spinach in garlic-herb cream. It’s exquisitely cooked and perfect, the blue mussel shells artistically placed on the four corners of a blinding white tray. We also order the Baked Stu ed Haddock ($28), with seafood stu ng, lemon-dill beurre blanc, and long-grain rice. We trade plates back and forth, twice.

All the while we're hypnotized by the moon that re ects on the waves below and draws a magic sparkle path to our eyes. My wife says, “It’s called a moonglade.” We’re here, but the path of light isn’t really there; we see it only because we’re here to see it. Isn’t all beauty subjective?

Dessert is Key Lime Pie ($10), an espresso, and a cappuccino, all barista-worthy. e moon’s rays follow us down an outdoor stairway that lets us walk back to our car without ever re-entering the indoor restaurant, beautiful and new as it is. Genius.

“See you on the roof deck!” n