It’s a Tuesday evening at Pomelia and Kathryn Mitchell is expertly shuffling dishes at the pass, the metal counter that divides front of house and back of house at the downtown Brunswick eatery. She gives each dish a final check and brushes away an errant crumb before calling for service.
Cary Ouelette and Mary Beth Rowe gather the bowls of Marsala porcini and pasta alla norma, the plates of calamari fritti and focaccia-style pizza, and head toward the bustling dining room.
Pomelia is the latest venture from Midcoast restaurateurs Tony and Chelsea Bickford. The couple has seen success in other ventures but stepped away from the restaurant business after the stress of the pandemic.
“We needed to get out of food service for a bit to realize how much we wanted to be in food service,” Chelsea said.
Between them, the partners have a long record of culinary experience in local kitchens.
Self-taught, Tony began his career in his hometown of Wiscasset, then moved on to restaurants in Portland before making his reputation as head chef at The Thistle Inn in Boothbay Harbor.
“If you have the passion, I feel like there’s plenty of information out there — cookbooks, the internet,” he said about learning the business.
He credits New York chef Will Guidara’s book “Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect” with changing his life and influencing his philosophy of food preparation and service.
Tony opened his first solo restaurant, Little Village Bistro, in Wiscasset in 2015. It quickly became a local favorite, generating comparison to high-end establishments in cities like New York and Boston.
Chelsea was born and raised in Harpswell. Her father, Aldie Leeman, is a third-generation Orr’s Island fisherman.
“I thought I hated it when I was growing up because you’re isolated,” she said. “But then I moved away and I just wanted to be back in Harpswell.”
She started working in Brunswick restaurants at the age of 15 but left the business to earn a marketing degree from Southern New Hampshire University. A stint at the Newagen Seaside Inn followed, then she worked as an event coordinator until she joined the staff at Little Village Bistro, where she met Tony.
In 2022, when the pandemic was hitting the restaurant business hard, Tony and Chelsea closed the dining room and pivoted to a market model, preparing and selling elevated meal kits designed for cooking at home. But the concept didn’t have the time it needed in a pandemic-era economy, they said, and they ultimately sold the restaurant.
The lessons Tony learned from that experience — how to create food that was creative and consistent, as well as easy to execute — became the seed of Pomelia. He found a method of cooking that would allow him to step back from the pressure of fine dining.
The Bickfords, who now live in Bath, had been out of the restaurant industry for the last two years as they focused on family. But when the popular Brunswick eatery Scarlet Begonias closed after 30 years, the opportunity for a fresh start in a convenient location was too good to pass up.
Pomelia, named after a fragrant flower popular in Sicily that Chelsea said symbolizes new beginnings, opened in January.
The couple had several key principles in mind as they planned Pomelia.
They needed a menu that could highlight Tony’s talent while allowing both of them time to spend with family.
The food needed to be fresh and flavorful, but the price point needed to be accessible.
They wanted to be welcoming to diners with a variety of dietary preferences and restrictions, so they created dishes they could easily convert to satisfy vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, or allergy-specific requirements.
“Pomelia is a casual restaurant, not fine dining,” Chelsea said. But for the Bickfords and their staff, focusing on flavors and exceeding service expectations remain the keys to providing “a great experience to the guests.”
As a chef, Tony has an affinity for Italian food. He and Chelsea even honeymooned in southern Italy. The couple chose to highlight Sicilian food at Pomelia as a way to stand out in Brunswick’s restaurant scene, which already has its fair share of Italian offerings.
The food of Sicily includes classic Italian flavors, but the island’s street food in particular takes elements from other Mediterranean countries, as well as North African cuisine.
Jackie Schaeffer, who dined at Pomelia in April while visiting family in the Brunswick area, is Sicilian by parentage but a Brooklynite by birth. She was excited to explore Pomelia’s menu, to revisit the food she remembers from her childhood — the imported olives she ate straight from the jar and the street food not normally found in America’s Italian restaurants.
The menu is designed to highlight appetizers, pizzas and pasta dishes, fare that is more flexible and, notably, less expensive than more traditional protein-based entrees.
Still, there are a number of dishes that include pork, beef, chicken or shrimp: the pescatora pizza, the ragu di salsiccia, the Calabrian chicken sandwich, the smashed burger with caramelized onion agrodolce and caciocavallo cheese to name a few.
But the meatless dishes stand on their own. The Marsala porcini is rife with the earthy umami of mushrooms and studded with pistachio, a staple in Sicilian cooking. It’s the first dish the servers name as a favorite.
The exterior crust of the arancini appetizer is extra crunchy, the creamy interior redolent with saffron and rich with cheese. The accompanying marinara is perfectly seasoned to bring out the flavor and sweetness of the San Marzano tomatoes.
The panellichi features two crisp chickpea fritters on a cloud of whipped ricotta served on toasted brioche buns. A squeeze of fresh lemon provides the perfect amount of acidity to bring the delicate flavors to life.
The beverage list features Sicilian cocktails, Italian wines, prosecco spritzes, draft and bottled beer, and a variety of nonalcoholic options.
One of Pomelia’s selling points is its affordability. Menu items range from $10 to $24, with most under $20. Making higher-priced proteins available as add-ons allows for the inclusion of more expensive imported ingredients that are true to Sicily’s food heritage. Ingredients like white anchovies and Castelvetrano olives enhance the authentic flavors that Pomelia strives to create.
“Being able to bring these into the menu without having to raise the price exorbitantly has been really nice,” Chelsea said.
Pomelia is a place designed for people to gather — over lunch, over dinner, as couples, as families, for special occasions or just to enjoy the food.
The menu is unique, the price point affordable, the service welcoming, and the food expertly prepared.
But the Bickfords aren’t stopping there. They have plans to open early to serve coffee and pastries to passengers waiting at the nearby bus and train stations. They want to introduce an aperitivo menu available from 4-5 p.m. with small bites and live jazz. They intend to be an integral part of the surrounding community, offering catering and collaborating on local events. And eventually they plan to open another restaurant.
“It’s endless opportunities here,” Chelsea said.
Pomelia, at 16 Station Ave., is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4-9 p.m. from Tuesday through Saturday.
