If you only eat out once while you’re here, make it a supper club, and Bar Harbor is the one people mean. It sits on the north end of Gull Lake in Lake Shore, about ten minutes from us, and it has been doing the same thing well for a very long time.
The supper club is a genuinely regional institution and worth understanding before you go. You arrive early, you have an old-fashioned or a brandy before dinner, and you settle in. The menu runs to walleye, steaks, prime rib and the sort of dishes that don’t need reinventing. Nobody is rushing you out. That’s rather the point.
The setting does a lot of the work. Wood, low light, and windows onto the lake, which in July means you’re eating while the sun goes down over the water. Boaters arrive by dock in summer, which is a very Minnesotan thing to watch.
Book ahead. Weekend evenings from June through August fill up well in advance, and turning up hopeful is a good way to end up eating pizza instead. Call (218) 963-2568.
Worth knowing: hours reduce outside the summer season, so ring first if you’re visiting between roughly October and May. Dress is smart-casual — nobody will mind if you’ve been on the lake all day.
