Mary Dumont
Ingredients for Success
Cooking is in her blood. Dad, two brothers and a sister are all in the restaurant biz, and last year Chef Mary Dumont of Portsmouth came home from creating great food in some of California’s finest restaurants to head up the kitchen at The Dunaway in Portsmouth’s Strawbery Banke. Named one of Food and Wine Magazine’s Ten Best New Chefs for 2006, she brings New England ingredients and West Coast flair into her cuisine, gathering fresh herbs and produce from historic gardens right behind the kitchen, even raising a pig for paté and hams. Going local also applies to Dumont’s work with Seacoast youth — she’s started an after-school program for teens to work in the garden and learn the art of local cuisine.
New Hampshire Magazine knows where “It” is at. Each November, we identify the state’s most happening people and publish their names and profiles in our annual “It List.”
So what defines an “It” Person?
How about buzz, panache, je ne sais quoi, currency, a person whose time has come, a person of tomorrow, a timeless person, noteworthy, below the radar, in the news, in the know, hot, cool, high impact, slippery, a mover and shaker, a humble saint, a behind-the-scenes operator, a scenery chewer, an unsung hero, a hero who knows how to sing.
It’s a quality that’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it.
Above is one member of the 2006 It List.
