Friday Food Insider: Mère brings sweet nostalgia to Cumberland

It's a rainy Sunday morning in Cumberland. The roads are quiet, the first hints of fall color are beginning to show and there's a slight chill to the air. I'm at Mère, a new bakery, cafe and marketplace on Gray Road, for a first look during its friends and family taste test. Inside, the smell of freshly baked breads and pastries filled the space as customers gathered around the pastry case, waiting for their turn to try. Trays of pastries were making their way out of the kitchen as Mère got its first real test: serving customers and seeing how the bakery worked in practice. I was waiting for their maple latte, which I got iced because it's still iced coffee season and a pain au chocolat or the cardamom cinnamon bun.  Inside the bakery Mère is located at 204 Gray Road, across from Skillins Greenhouses. The 2,000-square-foot space was formerly Seymour's Bird Refuge, which operated there for over 20 years.  The space has around 30 seats and combines a bakery, cafe and marketplace. Along with bread and pastries, the shop will serve coffee, lunch, prepared food and a selection of pantry goods. Shelves will stock local pantry staples, curated beer and wine, house-made jams and preserves, take-and-bake meals and locally crafted home goods. Mère will be open daily from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. For Cumberland, Mère is another addition to a food scene that continues to grow outside Portland. For chef and owner Georgia Macon, it's the next step in a baking career that has taken her from childhood recipes to some of the country's better-known bakeries and restaurants. A lifelong passion for baking Macon's path to Mère began long before she had a restaurant resume. She started baking at 8 years old, working from recipes in her late grandmother's Rolodex. That early interest eventually led her to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and then to San Francisco, where she worked at Tartine Bakery and helped open Tartine Manufacturing.  Most recently, she was the executive chef for Prentice Hospitality Group. At Twelve, her bread and butter service earned a spot on Bon Appétit's list of "Best New Dishes of 2023." She also developed the restaurant's croissant lobster roll. She is also the force behind Not A Bakery, a food truck with baked goods, which was named one of Eater's Best Bakeries of 2025. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times. In 2023, she was recognized as StarChefs' Rising Star Pastry Chef of New England. Reader Feedback What food festivals are you visiting this season? The Mainebiz Food Insider wants to hear from you. Contact Alexis Wells at awells@mainebiz.biz.