Editor’s Note: Wire contributor Paula Sullivan witnessed some of these events first hand. She worked in the Lindbergh’s Crossing kitchen from 1998 to 2001, and in the dining room from 2002 through winter 2004.

Lindbergh’s Crossing will celebrate its 10th anniversary next month, and although that might not seem like an extraordinary feat in a town that boasts eateries dating as far back as the 1920s, it still beats industry odds that predict 26 percent of new restaurants will fail within the first year, and up to 80 percent by the fifth.

Lindbergh’s success can be partially credited to the fact that, nestled among a row of quaint brick wharf buildings with views of Portsmouth’s historic waterfront, it embodies the adage that the three keys to success are location, location and location. But a more compelling force began 10 years before Lindbergh’s even opened, when Tom Fielding decided as a young college student that he would one day own a restaurant. Having worked in restaurants throughout high school and college, Fielding says he knew with absolute certainty that this was what he wanted to do.

He and school-chum Dan DiCesare made a pact to go into business together, and each set about gathering information and saving money. Over the subsequent decade, while the two embarked on separate adventures—Fielding traveled throughout Europe and served as an Air Force navigator in Saudi Arabia, while DiCesare served as an Air Force fighter pilot in Operation Desert Storm—they managed to keep the pact intact, taking notes all the while.

“I carried a little notebook around with me wherever I went,” Fielding says. “It was my little black book.” The pages were soon filled with descriptions of particular dishes that he found memorable, such as the cous cous avec fruit de mer he sampled at a Moroccan restaurant in Washington, D.C., and the cassoulet cooked by an aunt in Avignon, France—both dishes that would later become longtime fixtures on Lindbergh’s menu. But just as important as the food, says Fielding, were the observations he made about service and atmosphere. “I took note of styles of service and interior design cues that created a warm environment,” he says, and he vowed to avoid elements that he perceived as “sterile, unfriendly, and cold.” 

In 1994, Fielding and DiCesare met back up on the Seacoast and began to scout around for a location. Within a year, they heard about the closing of the renowned Blue Strawberry at 29 Ceres St. and were able to purchase the building. Both Fielding and DiCesare found themselves repeatedly looking to restoration carpenter Louis Hamel for advice as they planned renovations for their new building, and somewhere along the line, Hamel was invited to come on board as co-owner.

With Hamel’s carpentry expertise, they transformed the ground-level restaurant into a two-floor, 62-seat eatery while still retaining Fielding’s vision of a warm, friendly space. One wall of the first-floor dining room opens to the kitchen, and candlelight cast from copper tabletops warms the slate floors and brick walls. Upstairs, the wine bar features creaking wooden floors and a Louis Hamel custom-built bar. Overhead, signatures from the 1800s, when linseed oil was bottled here, are still scrawled across the exposed beams. (The current owners have continued the tradition, as departing employees now sign a beam in the restaurant’s business office.)

Upstairs and down, old airplane propellers hang on the walls. Like his new partners, Hamel was also a pilot, and that fact, combined with Fielding’s love for the country-French cuisine he had sampled throughout France, led to the name, and to the theme, of Lindbergh’s Crossing.

That the three men happened upon the location of the most celebrated restaurant north of Boston was certainly a first stroke of good luck. A second was when they were given the phone number of a young chef by the name of Jeffrey Tenner. Then only 23 years old and working at a small bistro in Colorado, Tenner had recently been in Portsmouth visiting his parents and had cooked a dinner party for them—a dinner that happened to be attended by Blue Strawberry owner Gene Brown. When Brown advised the new owners of his old restaurant to give Tenner a call, the partners flew him back to Portsmouth and arranged for a little test.

Fielding doesn’t remember all of the ingredients they had on hand for the trial run, but when Tenner arrived he was directed to a refrigerator in which he found (among other things) scallops, veal shanks and Brussels sprouts. Given one hour to compose an entire meal, he managed to turn out delicious, if not exactly fork-tender, osso buco. The thing Fielding remembers most from the dinner is the golden-brown sear that Tenner put on the scallops. “It was the first time I had ever had seared food,” Fielding says with an embarrassed chuckle. “I know it sounds kind of elementary at this point, but the flavors were incredible.” The three pilots had hit the jackpot and on March 9, 1996, they opened their doors, becoming an instant hit.

The restaurant has evolved in many ways since then. Today, Fielding is the only remaining founding owner (Hamel co-owns Little Louie’s Fish House and Dover Soul, both in Dover; Tenner lives in Boston with his wife and two young children; and DiCesare is a still a commercial cargo pilot). But by Fielding’s side is his partner in both business and life, Scott O’Connor. When O’Connor arrived as a customer at Lindbergh’s Crossing shortly after it opened, he certainly had no notion that he would be meeting his future life partner or that he would someday be co-owner of the eatery. Having spent time in the kitchen at the Blue Strawberry, he thought he was eating at a restaurant that would surely fail.

“I took one look at the menu,” says O’Connor, “and thought, with these (low) prices, they’ll be out of business in a week.” (The average price of an entree on the opening menu was $12.95; today, it’s $22.95). Like Fielding, however, he was blown away by the flavors of the food he had that night. O’Connor was looking to get back to the stove after running a restaurant in New York City, and Tenner hired him on as a kitchen assistant.

In another stroke of luck, O’Connor possessed an impressive depth of wine knowledge and a gifted wine palate. He eventually assumed control of the wine list, and in 1997, both O’Connor and Tenner were made partners, bringing the total to a whopping five.

Next came Ciento, the 90-seat Spanish tapas bar that the five partners opened around the corner on Market Street in 1999. The restaurant, though well-received by the public, was not able to beat the industry odds, failing after two years. It was a difficult blow for all of the owners, who had invested heavily in the endeavor, and it was made worse when the prospective sale of the business fell through and the partners were forced to hastily reopen the location as Lou’s Upstairs Grill. That restaurant closed after only one year, leaving the partners emotionally exhausted, heavily in debt, and with the future of Lindbergh’s Crossing hanging precariously in the balance. Eventually, DiCesare, Hamel and Tenner sold their shares of the business to Fielding and O’Connor, who were able, thanks to the sale of a bit of prime Market Square real estate that Fielding co-owned with DiCesare, to climb out of the financial rubble and focus their attention on the restaurant they loved.

Among those who dispersed after Ciento closed was executive sous chef Evan Mallet, who moved to Mexico with his wife and baby daughter. When he returned two years later, he learned of Tenner’s planned departure from Lindbergh’s and agreed to once again assume the role of sous chef with the intention of being groomed as Tenner’s replacement.

Mallet had definitely made an impression during his tenure at Ciento, although he describes a precarious beginning during his training at Lindbergh’s Crossing. When he first came to Lindbergh’s in 1999, he brought with him little professional kitchen experience. “Either to (Tenner’s) credit or to his detriment, he ended up not firing me within a few weeks, but it became pretty much clear that it was a one way relationship; I had a lot to learn, and the kitchen had nothing to gain by me being there,” he says.

In spite of Mallet’s mechanical clumsiness in the kitchen, he possessed what O’Connor describes as “an extraordinary palate and food intellect,” particularly in the area of Spanish cuisine. Under Tenner’s patient tutelage, Mallet learned how to competently maneuver his way around a kitchen. At Ciento, O’Connor and Fielding credit Mallet as being instrumental in bringing integrity and creativity to the menu. “Everything we loved about Ciento—Evan was key to that,” says O’Connor.

Mallet officially took over at Lindbergh’s in 2003 and says now, “One of the miracles of this business is a schlep can come in with almost no previous experience and within a few years, rise to the position of chef.” He still credits Tenner’s perseverance with his ultimate success and says with a laugh, “That guy could teach a monkey how to cook.”

Mallet has infused the original French bistro theme of the menu with more and more of the Spanish, Portuguese and South African cuisines he helped to introduce at Ciento, but these influences will take a back seat next month when Fielding and O’Connor kick off the restaurant’s 10th anniversary celebration. From March 1 through March 15, the menu will go back to it’s country-French roots, with bistro classics like Coquilles Saint Jacques and Boeuf Bourguignonne once again taking the spotlight
There will also be a few special events. On Sunday, March 5, they’ll hold an Oscar party upstairs in the wine bar, with theater-style viewing of the awards (dress is either black-tie or as your favorite nominated film). On Thursday, March 9, they’ll celebrate the anniversary date with a champagne tasting from 5 to 7 p.m. Tenner will return as guest chef on Friday, March 10 and will re-create the original menu (this dinner is already sold out). A family-style meal—something Fielding has always wanted to offer—is planned for March 15 (this author will be the guest chef for that one).

As for the next 10 years, O’Connor and Fielding make no predictions, but O’Connor says simply, “It always has to be fresh and we always have to love coming here. If it ever becomes stale, then it will be time to finish.”