Marco Bellini
Chef and ownerRaised in the family trattoria in Camogli, trained in Genoa and London. He writes the menu each morning after the fish call and works the pass Tuesday through Saturday.
About the bistro
A Ligurian kitchen that learned to cook Maine
Marco Bellini opened Harbor and Vine with his grandmother's recipe book, a two burner range, and a standing order with a Casco Bay lobsterman.
How the room came together
Marco grew up in Camogli, a fishing town on the Ligurian coast where his family ran a nine table trattoria for three generations. He cooked there through his teens, left for kitchens in Genoa and then London, and arrived in Portland in 2011 for what was meant to be a single summer working the line at a waterfront hotel.
What kept him here was the resemblance. Cold water fish, rocky shore, small boats, a short and stubborn growing season. The ingredients he had known his whole life had rough Maine cousins, and nobody was cooking them the Ligurian way: gently, with good oil, a lot of herbs, and very little in the way of decoration.
He spent four years cooking for other people and saving. In 2016 he took a lease on a narrow brick building two streets back from the piers, kept the original floorboards, and opened with twenty six seats and a menu written on a chalkboard. The chalkboard is still there. The menu still changes daily.
Nine years, one small dining room
We have grown slowly and on purpose. Here is roughly how it went.
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2016
Twenty six seats and a chalkboard
Marco opened with his wife Elena running the floor, one dishwasher, and a menu of four starters and three mains. The first winter was thin enough that they closed Mondays and Tuesdays to keep the lights on.
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2018
The first standing boat order
A handshake with a lobsterman out of Peaks Island turned into a daily call at six in the morning. That call still decides what gets written on the board, and it is the reason the menu can never be printed in advance.
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2020
Pasta out the side door
Through the closures the kitchen sold fresh pasta, sauce, and bread from a folding table in the alley. Regulars queued in the cold. It paid the staff and it is the reason the current menu always has one dish you can take home in a box.
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2022
The room upstairs
The floor above came free and became a private dining room for fourteen, with one long walnut table and a window over the working waterfront. It hosts more rehearsal dinners than anything else.
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Today
Five courses, Tuesday to Saturday
The bistro seats forty two downstairs, pours around forty labels, and still writes the tasting menu the morning of service. Marco is on the pass five nights a week.
We buy short and cook the same day
There is no walk in freezer full of backup. Everything that goes out of the kitchen was bought within a day or two of being served, which means the menu is at the mercy of the weather and the tides. When the boats stay in, we cook beans and greens, and we do it well.
The boats
Hake, monkfish, pollock, and whatever else comes up in the nets, landed at Portland Fish Pier and collected by hand before service.
The farms
Vegetables, eggs, and herbs from four small growers between Cape Elizabeth and Bowdoinham, most of them within an hour's drive.
The pantry
Olive oil, anchovies, and dried pasta still come from two producers in Liguria that Marco's family has bought from for decades.
The people you will meet
Nine of us keep the place running. These three are the ones you are most likely to talk to.
Elena Bellini
General managerRuns the dining room and takes almost every booking herself. If you have an allergy, a birthday, or a table of nervous in laws, she is the one to tell.
Devon Marchetti
Pastry and breadBakes the focaccia and the sourdough every morning before the rest of the kitchen arrives, then builds whatever quiet dessert closes the tasting menu that night.
Good to know before you come
The questions we answer most often on the phone.
Not in advance, and that is deliberate. The five courses are decided after the morning fish call, so the only accurate menu is the one on the chalkboard that night. If you want a sense of the style, the dishes almost always include a raw fish course, a hand rolled pasta, and one plate built around beans or braised greens.
Yes. Tell us when you book and the kitchen will build around it rather than removing things from a plate. A full vegetarian tasting menu needs a day's notice. Coeliac and severe shellfish allergies are handled directly by Marco, so please flag them rather than mentioning it to your server on arrival.
There is a five glass zero proof pairing made in house from local fruit, shrubs, and infusions, and it changes with the seasons alongside the wine list. It costs less than the wine pairing and it gets ordered more every year.
We hold a handful of counter seats back each night for walk ins, first come and first served from 5:30pm. The dining room itself books out most weekends about two weeks ahead, so if you are travelling and have a fixed date, reserve it.
Very. Marco grew up underfoot in a restaurant. The kitchen will happily cook a plain plate of pasta with butter and cheese for younger guests, and the earlier sittings are the calmest time to bring them.
What guests say about the room
Notes left by people who came in for dinner and wrote to us afterwards.
★★★★★
I have eaten in Camogli and I did not expect to find that exact anchovy and oil flavour on Commercial Street, but there it was. We told Elena at booking that my wife cannot eat gluten and the kitchen sent out a completely different pasta course for her rather than skipping it. Marco came out at the end of service to ask how the hake had been, which I suspect he does for everyone, and it still felt genuine.
★★★★★
Warm, unfussy, and the focaccia alone is worth the walk over. Tables are close together, so it is not the place for a quiet conversation on a Friday.
Come and eat with us
Dinner runs from 5:30pm, Tuesday through Saturday. Elena takes the bookings herself, so tell us anything we should know when you reserve.
Book a Table