Mary Dumont

Mary Dumont’s path into the kitchen was shaped by school, family, and a long apprenticeship in professional kitchens. She studied at Simmons College, and cooking was already part of her household life. Her family was in the business, with parents who had a restaurant, a brother who was a chef, another brother who runs a restaurant, and a sister who owns a restaurant. In that environment, kitchens were not abstract spaces but a working culture learned early and carried forward.

She trained at Simmons College and then moved into professional kitchens, honing her craft with Tracy Des Jardins, Laurent Manrique, and Daniel Patterson at Jardinière, Campton Place, and Elizabeth Daniel in San Francisco, California. Those kitchens demanded precision, stamina, and steady execution, and they became the proving ground for a chef building both technique and confidence. Dumont then stepped into leadership as founder and executive chef at The Dunaway Restaurant at Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

That role marked a shift from learning in other chefs’ kitchens to shaping a place of her own. She later served as chef at Harvest in Cambridge, Massachusetts, continuing a career that moved through kitchens with distinct identities and expectations. She went on to open Cultivar at Ames Boston Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, where she worked from 2017 to 2019, adding another chapter to an already varied career. In 2021, Dumont co-founded and served as executive chef at PlantPub in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, bringing her experience into a new concept and collaboration.

Her career has been marked by movement, reinvention, and a willingness to keep building through different kinds of kitchens and projects. She is now executive chef at The White Barn Inn Restaurant in Kennebunk, Maine, where her role places her at the center of one of the state’s closely watched dining rooms. Dumont has also received recognition for her work, including Food & Wine Best New Chef and Chef of the Year. Her career reflects both the discipline of professional kitchens and the influence of a family deeply rooted in the restaurant world. From early training to leadership roles, she has built a path defined by craft, persistence, and the steady accumulation of experience.