Sail away to the Mediterranean

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 -1 a.m.

Today's Fair Haven Inn Restaurant stands on the footings of the old Fair Haven Inn destroyed by fire in 1993. Out of the ashes of the historic Victorian inn rose a beautiful phoenix-a doric temple that boasts one of the best Mediterranean offerings in northern New England.

Celebrities living or vacationing in Vermont-and there are lots of them-have good noses when it comes to sniffing out first-class dining and entertainment. The Fair Haven Inn is no exception with its large dining rooms, beautiful native-stone fireplaces with fragrant paper-birch fires, and intimate tavern.

When popular Hollywood actor Tom Selleck-famous for his portrayals of television's fictional Magnum P.I. and scotch-drinking police chief Jesse Stone-is in town, you may see him at the inn sharing a quiet dinner with friends. Even comic actor Dom DeLuise likes his visits to the inn. DeLuise's agent reports that the actor, who is a master Italian cook himself, receives first-class service and smacks his lips when he reads the inn's award-winning Greco-Mediterranean menu. Before his death in 2002, Academy Award-winner James Coburn-star of "Our Man Flint", "The Great Escape" and "Major Dundee"-included the Fair Haven Inn on his visits to Vermont. You can even see a small picture of the late Mr. Coburn posing at the inn on a wall near the dining room.

You'd think that with all the attention paid to the Fair Haven Inn by some of the beautiful people, the owners would be boastful-not so.

Owners Dimitrios and Mihaella Leremias are classic restaurateurs. A celebrity is a customer and every Fair Haven Inn customer they meet is treated like a celebrity. And you'll find no healthier menu than the Leremias'. A fresh Mediterranean diet is considered one of the best heart healthy diets on Earth-and you don't have cross an ocean and a sea to find it. Several members of the hearty Leremias family have survived to over a century.

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