Photo / Renee Cordes
Chef Matt Ginn, in white, chats with diners during a pre-opening meal at the Good Table in Cape Elizabeth.
Updated: March 26, 2024
New ownership of the Good Table adds zest to Cape Elizabeth eatery's comfort-food roots
Photo / Renee Cordes
Pork schnitzel and shepherd's pie are on the menu of the revamped Good Table restaurant in Cape Elizabeth, which will reopen this Thursday under new ownership.
Photos / Renee Cordes
The new Good Table menu was crafted by Chef Matt Ginn and Pastry Chef Georgia Macon.
When the Good Table restaurant reopens this Thursday, the new owner expects to have some trepidation about the response from longtime customers of the Cape Elizabeth eatery.
“We’re inheriting a business that has been around for 38 years, which is a very impressive run for any restaurant,” Casey Prentice, CEO and managing partner of the Prentice Organization, told Mainebiz in a telephone interview Monday.
Since agreeing to buy the restaurant last October from the original family owners, the group has renovated the interior and Chef Matt Ginn has crafted a menu of elegant comfort food.
“The menu was inspired by foods I’d serve you if you dined in my home — for some that is a roast chicken, for others that’s mac-and-cheese,” said Ginn, who grew up in Cape Elizabeth and opened Evo Kitchen + Bar in Portland in 2015 for the Prentice Organization's hospitality group.
“Regardless of age or dietary restrictions, even just preferences, I wanted to make sure the menu felt homey and welcoming,” Ginn added. “The space itself is a nod to a Cape-style home, from the sideboard to the original photographs on the wall.”
'Some nervousness'
Days before the grand opening, Prentice told Mainebiz that while “there is definitely some nervousness about how the existing customer base is going to feel about the changes,” the team has made an effort to stay true to the original concept of providing great food at honest prices.
“We’re doing it in our own style, but we’re staying true to those roots," said Prentice, who was a Mainebiz 40 Under 40 honoree in 2023.
Part of his job has involved sampling several dishes before the opening. That includes Ginn’s gluten-free shepherd’s pie, a hearty blend of lamb, beef and English peas.
“I’m a sucker for shepherd’s pie,” Prentice said. “I usually have to put ketchup on mine, but I will not do that at the Good Table.”
Photo / Renee Cordes
Pastry Chef Georgia Macon's pudding pie.
The dessert menu features pudding pie, cookies made with malted milk and other unique sweet treats by Pastry Chef Georgia Macon. She is also the pastry chef at Twelve, Prentice’s high-end restaurant on Portland’s East End, in the Portland Foreside neighborhood he is developing.
"I think you can’t miss with any of the options on Good Table’s cookie plate, but the brown butter shortbread is probably my all-time favorite cookie to make and to eat,” Macon said.
Macon grew up in St. Louis, and studied at French culinary school Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, earning a degree in pastry arts.
"Growing up, we always had a box of Lorna Doone’s [cookies] in our pantry, and it was both my mom’s and my favorite afternoon snack,” she said. "I’ve spent years of my baking career trying to emulate that simple, subtly sweet, impossibly tender buttery treat, and the brown butter shortbread is the closest I’ve come thus far.”
More information
The Good Table, at 527 Ocean House Road in Cape Elizabeth, will be open for reservations and walk-ins from Wednesday through Saturday, 5-9 p.m.
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