FORT KENT, Maine — Northern Mainers can now try Tex-Mex cuisine commonly seen along the southern border at a new Aroostook smokehouse.
Married couple Sean Russey and Kristin Laflamme opened Fort Kent’s Le Fumoir on Cinco de Mayo. “Le Fumoir” is “The Smoker” in French.
The restaurant is the most recent in a series of new eateries to bring unique culinary selections to northern Maine. Earlier this year, Cou-yon’s Cajun Shack in Madawaska started serving authentic Cajun cuisine. And just a couple of years ago, Northern Maine Kolache Co. began offering stuffed Czech pastries in Van Buren.
For Russey, the venture caps his lifelong love of cooking. It also represents the combination of not only southern and Acadian cuisines, but also of Russey and Laflamme and their cultures: he’s from Texas and she’s from Quebec.
“Not just the menu, but the name and the logo are also a fusion of both of us as well,” Laflamme said.
Nothing at the restaurant is pre-made. The sauces are all made in-house and the meats are smoked for several hours. The salsa is homemade and the chips are fried fresh every day. Even the queso cheese is smoked in-house.
While most of the food is a fusion of Tex-Mex and southern barbecue, they also offer smoked cretons, a popular Acadian spread made with pork. Russey stumbled across the idea while smoking pork one day.
“I said, ‘What if we grind it down and simmer it like cretons?’ And we did. And it exploded. People were like, ‘Holy cow, you’ve changed the way I look at cretons,’” he said.
Russey hopes to incorporate more Acadian food in the future, like Montreal-style smoked meats.
The restaurant is in a large multi-use building that also houses the town’s post office, apartments and a medical office. The space once housed Doris’ Cafe, a well-known eatery in town that was open for 30 years. The cafe’s reputation lives on.
“When people refer to this place, it’s always “Is that the old Doris’ Cafe place?” Laflamme said.
The cafe closed shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began, then briefly reopened under the name Memere’s Kitchen.
Russey has wanted to open his own restaurant since he was a teenager.
“I started in a dish pit as a kid, then worked my way up to salads,” he said. “Cooking and being a chef has just always been in my wheelhouse. The kitchen is my happy place.”
Russey is from Austin, Texas, and Laflamme’s family is based in Montreal. They met in Houston and decided to move to northern Maine to be closer to Montreal.
Russey first worked at Hannaford, The Whistle Stop, Rock’s Family Diner and most recently at the Lakeview Restaurant in St. Agatha.
Then the property owner got in touch with Russey about opening a restaurant in the building. They took the offer last October and started renovating the space, giving it a complete makeover with colorful booths with a Mexican folk art aesthetic along with new bathrooms and a new kitchen.
They hope the vibrant appearance will brighten up the mood during the region’s long winters.
Right now, Russey and Laflamme are mostly running the restaurant on their own. But sometimes they will get temporary help on weekends if needed.
Their best selling items are their box meals, designed to feed a full family for under $40. The $35 taco box has 15 street tacos, two half-pound sides, and chips and salsa.
“That’s really helping people who are struggling with being able to go out to eat with how the economy is,” Russey said.
Even though they have only been open for a few months, Russey and Laflamme are committed to serving the community. They teamed up with First Mile Brewing Company, a local tap room, to make borracho beans simmered with their beer. They also worked with Northwoods Nectar of Eagle Lake in making some of their desserts.
The restaurant also donates food boxes to the local library about once a month for children’s story time, and their recycling goes to the local Scout fundraiser.
“We just want to be able to give back to the community that supports us by coming to get our food,” Russey said.