The Burning Tree Restaurant

Tasty, exquisite meal. Friendly service. Out of the way but only 10 min from Bar Harbor. Atmosphere is a bit lacking but it’s a National Park vacation, right?!

This was such a pleasant experience. Food was delicious and also looked so beautiful.
Quant little house at the bottom of Acadia National park that will surprise you with flavor and simplicity.
Definite must when visiting Maine.

Got this recommendation from a local and it’s a gem. Incredible small town ambiance. We both had fish dishes (menu changes frequently). Entrees $ 25 – 40. Excellent service, great sides great wine. Totally blew us away. Highly reccomend

Really overrated and underwhelming. The pork belly appetizer was tough and my seafood dish came out cold. Waitress did not really know how to react to problems. I don’t believe I will be going back.
Other dishes my party ordered seemed fine, but definitely spotty.

They were very creative with the ingredients but nothing really worked. The flavors did not meld but competed while the sauces and salads added additional confusion. Definitely overly ambitious with the descriptions while the tastes were bland. The monkfish, halibut and the pinwheel sole had no flavor– what happened to the described bouquet of flavors? Just tasted bland & boring. My fried squid salad was full of stringy ingredients like bean sprouts and some spice in watermelon radish and long thin slices of cucumber. Be warned there are no meat dishes on the menu and only one chicken one. Our «meat only» diner of our party of 6 ordered the vegetarian dish and was the only one who enjoyed his meal. Service was pleasant, the place was cute in an old house– our table was located on the screened in porch which was fine as the evening was cool. There are better choices for less money in Bar Harbor.

We eat at Burning Tree at least once during our visit to MDI every summer. The restaurant is always busy; reservations are essential. The food is first-​rate — fresh, flavorful, and creatively prepared and presented. In past years, service was sometimes slow, but this time service was attentive and the pace of the meal was just right. We had two specials, a black cod and a swordfish, both of which were perfectly cooked and served with fruity sauces that complemented the fish without overpowering it. From past visits, I highly recommend the cod entrée that is regularly on the menu.

We called a few weeks in advance for dinner reservations at this popular restaurant that is renowned for its seafood and vegetarian fare. A basket with 3 types of bread was delivered to the table while we perused the menu. A shared appetizer of 6 mussels grilled with spicy harissa and radicchio was delicious, but priced excessively high. For an entrée, my wife chose pan seared monkfish with a sweet chili glaze that was accompanied by Thai style eggplant and a coconut sauce. I chose a pan roast with chicken, chorizo, and clams that also included braised fennel, new red potatoes, garlic, leeks, kale, tomatoes and sherry pan juices. Accompanying each entrée was a mini salad of micro greens with yellow beets that proved to be a delight both to the eye and palate. Overall, our dining experience this evening proved to be one of, if not, the best of our 8-​night food centric vacation.

Part Four of best restaurants tour, incl Red Sky, Mâché Bistro and Havana. We decided this one lands in 3^rd place, behind Red Sky, ahead of Havana. Pluses: freshness of food (garden right there), range of menu, intimacy of setting. Negatives: staff (all seasonal, hit-​or-​miss), same menu for years, a bit pricey compared to others. Not sure wine pours are really 6 oz as they claim. Specials are often good, and wine options good, but not stellar. Ask to be seated inside, as porch is alongside road/​loud.

Outstanding service, presentation and
food combinations! It was difficult to decide what to order with so many great menu items! Fortunately our table has no problem asking for side dishes to share with. Everything was delicious! The chef even pulled an appetizer back (hen clam app) realizing the sauce wasn’t right and had the waiter ask us to choose alternate plate instead of serving a sub par dish. The waiter suggested an excellent red for the table and was very knowledgable. You cannot go wrong here.

The place itself is quaint (inside of an old house) and from my understanding, a great deal of the food is grown locally (some even in the backyard!) I had a really hard time finding something to eat here, as I do not like seafood. There was one dish that had chicken and clams, I think, but I was able to get it without the clams. It still tasted very fishy. Overall, while I enjoyed the experience of such an eclectic place, I found it overpriced and not all that tasty.

This place bills itself as a «seafood/​vegetarian» place. That is not especially true. The seafood selection is great (or so my family all told me), but if you are a vegetarian, you will only get two options. And they don’t do substitutions. The service was slow and our server did a few strange things:
–She refused to take any plates until everyone was finished eating
–She smiled while saying something very unaccommodating
–She did not tell us the prices of any of the specials
–She did not mention the salad that comes with the entrees and the menu did not mention this either (we only found out when we got our entrees)
This place is also VERY pricy. I don’t mind paying a bit more more for excellent service or atmosphere or local/​organic/​fresh food, but I did not feel like I was getting what I paid for in this case. Mostly because of the service and the price.

My go-​to place for a nice meal when I visit Acadia National Park. As others have said, the food here is stellar. Local produce (literally, grown behind the restaurant), great selection of local seafood, and plenty of vegetarian options to choose from including a beautiful squash terrine. Nice wine selection and interesting cocktails.
The 4 stars, rather than 5, is for atmosphere. Twice we’ve been seated on their porch, which was cold. So cold, in fact, that it was hard to enjoy the meal. The last time we visited we were in the dining room, where it was more than warm enough. Just be aware that if it’s a chilly night in Otter Creek, you don’t want to be on the porch. Or wear your winter jacket.
One other fun fact: if you go to Burning Tree on their closing night (usually around Columbus Day weekend), the entire staff is dressed up in themed costume. When we went it was a jungle theme, and our server was wearing a loin cloth. Which is where he kept his check presenter.

How can a restaurant be better than you remember, even after several visits? This is how: smoked mussels in Harissa on lettuce, crispy kale with little neck clams, Japanese eggplant in pomegranate and yogurt sauce, bouillabaisse, and monkfish with their coconut rice and flavors. This meal was as amazing as it sounds. Add to that fantastic service (thanks Rowan!) and a classy but also casual vibe (thank you for letting us linger for a couple of hours!). Dessert just rounded everything out, with the lemon sorbet (my husband found it sublime) and the chocolate applesauce cake with Persian vanilla ice cream (one of Rowan’s several spot on recommendations). We came back a few nights later for our last night in Acadia, and the meal was just as good. Highlights were the crab salad, chicken and polenta cake, clams/​chicken/​chorizo dish, and the almond meal cake for dessert. Definitely still one of our favorite restaurants!

The food was delicious, but the service was SLOW. Also we went on a hot summer night, so the small place was stuffy and cramped. The meals were overpriced, but very creative in style. If I hadn’t been left waiting for an appetizer for 40 minutes in sure the rating would be much more generous.

I’ve enjoyed Burning Tree a couple of times each season for many years. It’s one of the few places on MDI where I would want to take a visiting foodie.
Three of us had dinner there this evening, and the salads and entrees were exceptional. Oh, I suppose I might quibble about the flavor balance of the sauce on my monkfish, but overall, everything was very, very good. I’m not sure what some reviewers expect, but fine food in a rustic Maine cottage with young, attentive, genuinely warm and friendly wait staff is perfect for me.

You might initially pass this place and think it’s place filled with scented candles, incense and yoga, but it turns out that this little place on the eastern side of Mount Desert Island is also one of the island’s tastiest eateries. It’s got a great rustic, beach house-​ish ambiance with the dining area divided into several small rooms that have been opened up as much as possible. To top it all off, the soundtrack through much of the evening was the band Beach House — a wonderful treat for my party and me, but nice summery background music for everyone else.
The wine list features several dozen bottles representing most of the world’s famed wine regions, plus a small but respectable beer list that’s heavy on the Maine brews. Both the appetizer menu and the dinner menu leaned expectedly to the seafood side of things, though the winner amongst our chosen apps was the stuff, fried squash blossoms. Smoked salmon was great, though it’s possible that the greens it was served with stole the show.
I went with the braised rabbit, which was over a bed of rice, red & orange peppers and some olives. I’m not the biggest olive fan so I gave most of those away. The dish probably would’ve been legendary had it been prepared with some different sides, but it was still very memorable. Had a taste of the halibut, maybe the best I’ve ever had.

Ate at Burning Tree as our last night in Acadia. Most of their produce and meat are from local farms, or even from their own garden. Not only is the food fresh and prepared well, there are a number of pretty unique dishes such as deep fried squash blossoms stuffed with goat cheese and served with a spicy and sweet tomato jam. Other highlights include fresh sesame cucumbers served with an edible flower, the rabbit with baby bell peppers, capers and olives, or even the homemade earl grey with shortbread ice cream or saffron vanilla ice cream with bits of pistachio. Fantastic, good quality food that is worth the price ($ 28 – 34 dollar per entrée).

4.5 stars, if I could give halves. Might have missed this, were it not for a recommendation we received from a couple drinking beers beside us at Atlantic Brewing. They’d been here about a month and named it one of the best meals they’d gotten. It’s about a 20-​minute drive from Bar Harbor village, and we enjoyed having our last dinner away from the weekend hustle & bustle in town.
The restaurant is set in a house, with covered seating on the front porch, and in a few rooms on the first floor. It is cramped, and therefore loud and a little stuffy. But the ambiance doesn’t detract from the food…
The bread basket had three breads — a crusty French, rye, and banana bread! For a small restaurant, the menu is surprisingly diverse, and there were several dishes that caught our eye. On top of that, there are daily specials, several of which sounded great. We ordered one of the special apps, which was fried squash blossoms, stuffed with goat cheese and served with tomato jam. You just can’t go wrong with any of those ingredients, and they tasted as good together as they sound. Just melted in my mouth!
My entrée was monkfish, topped with sweet chili sauce, served with Thai-​style coconut jasmine rice and eggplant. First, the portions are BIG. And they come with additional veggie sides not even listed on the menu. That evening it was cauliflower and garlic scalloped potatoes. I loved how my dish fused seafood with Asian flavors; but I did think the chili sauce was a little heavy-​handed, and overpowered the wonderfully nuanced rice. My husband couldn’t stop raving about his main course, swordfish with preserved Moroccan lemon, and subtle cumin and cinnamon. It was his favorite thing he ate all week.
I think there’s 5-​star potential here, but I was disappointed with service. Though everyone who came to our table was friendly, and helped answer questions about the menu, wait service felt inexperienced: my water glass stayed empty for more than half the meal; we’d ordered a bottle of wine, and the server didn’t top our glasses; she also didn’t bus our bread or app plates until the entire meal was finished. Nit-​picky service stuff that didn’t sway the overall experience; still, they are certainly things that are handled well by most restaurants serving at this price point.

Certainly a little bit off of the beaten path, but a really good restaurant. Came here in the middle of a downpour, but the décor around seems really nice. I like the garden out front, I could see the owner tending to it even in the rainstorm. The bread was really really good, the service was good but not five star, was mostly summer staff. The meal was really good, but I wouldn’t call it five stars, the food was too herby for my taste. I’m not sure that I would come again, I haven’t really been to the other fancy restuarants around Bar Harbor, but I was very satisfied with the meal.

If you are looking for a gourmet dining experience while visiting Bar Harbor, you cannot do better than The Burning Tree Restaurant. This was one of the best meals my wife and I have ever eaten. Everything was fresh and perfectly prepared.
The menu is constantly changing based on what is fresh and in-​season, so rather than go into lots of detail about our specific orders, I’ll just share the highlights. We started with fresh salads — mine was with fresh greens from their own garden, and my wife had a beet salad. The green salad was very good, but the beet salad was truly special. (My only complaint is that the salads seemed to be priced a bit high, but if I went back I would still order them at any price.)
Both of entrees were spectacular. The dishes were perfectly balanced with slightly unexpected tastes that really elevated the dishes to a new level. I had a perfectly prepared grilled salmon over beans. The beans were the stars. They had a barbecue flavor with some exotic spices. It worked perfectly with the salmon. My wife ordered Swiss chard with scallop mousse, lobster and shrimp in a tarragon cream sauce. This dish was unbelievable! The tarragon cream sauce was divine.
The desserts and wine list were also very good. The restaurant has a relaxed, casual vibe. Our service was friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful, although partway through the meal they switched our server without any explanation.
This was truly one of the most amazing dining experiences that my wife and I have ever had. We would put our meal here in the same category as meals that we have had at Per Se and Le Bernardin in New York, and Bayona in New Orleans.