The Alna Store makes the New York Times’ 2024 list of the country’s best restaurants

The New York Times has included destination dining hot spot The Alna Store in its 2024 roundup of America’s best restaurants.

Fried halloumi and bitter-greens salad at The Alna Store. Photo by Jasper Ludwig

The list, compiled by the paper’s reporters and editors over the last 12 months, represents their 50 “favorites” this year. Of the 50, 29 are newly opened since the Times announced its 2023 list, when Maine was represented by wood-fired pizzeria and bakery Tinder Hearth in Brooksville.

“On a rural crossroads covered in white clapboard, the Alna Store looks like the old-time country shop that it was for decades,” The Times’ fourth annual list notes. “But now, the shelves in back are stocked with natural wines, imported tinned fish and bracing housemade ferments (kimchi, hot sauce, curry kraut). And in front, an ambitious restaurant serves a thoroughly of-the-moment, local menu that’s full of sophisticated touches without being at all pretentious.”

The Alna Store is the sole Maine restaurant to make the New York Times list. Other New England venues on the list include The Shipwright’s Daughter in Mystic, Connecticut, where Chef David Standridge won the 2024 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Northeast; Korean restaurant Somaek in Boston; and new raw bar and seafood restaurant Gift Horse in Providence, Rhode Island.

Opened in December 2022 by Jasper Ludwig and Brian Haskins, The Alna Store earned a James Beard Award nomination this year for Best New Restaurant. Portland Press Herald food critic Andrew Ross named it his Best New Restaurant in 2023 and gave the restaurant a rare 4.5-star review.

Ludwig and Haskins were not immediately available Tuesday to speak more about the recognition.

This summer, Ben Slattery, previously of Chaval and the former Pigeons, joined The Alna Store as chef de cuisine.

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