Spending the day at Short Sands beach is a summer treat. Tucked between Nubble Light and York Cliffs, the 410-yard strip of sand marks the center of the popular tourist destination of York Beach. Droves of people settle into the sand from dawn until dusk, surfing, sunning, and unwinding.
 
But as evening descends, York Beach offers another kind of treat. Just a brief stroll from Short Sands, past the Fun-O-Rama arcade and bowling alley, and up to the big, yellow, four-story edifice called the Atlantic House on Beach Street sits Blue Sky restaurant.
 
For sun-kissed diners, Blue Sky is a welcome new oasis. Its Atlantic House home, with its nostalgic rusticator-era architecture, wasn’t always an après-sun spot. In its heyday, back in the 1920s and ’30s, it was one of the town’s most popular hotels. But by the end of the twentieth century it had turned into a dilapidated eyesore and fire waiting to happen.
 
“I fell in love with the building immediately,” recounts executive chef and co-owner of Blue Sky, Lydia Shire. She was undeterred by the structure’s deteriorated condition and resident skunk. “It was such a beautiful old building, I knew with careful restoration it would be fabulous.”
 
Fabulous it is. The 6,500-square-foot restaurant opened in November of 2007 with warm chocolate-colored walls, breezy window-doors that open to a fifty-seat porch (complete with embedded heat lamps), stylish white “Lydia” chairs, and a stone fireplace. Diners have many appealing alcoves: there is the lounge, offering a more casual menu, the food bar, where diners can watch salads, pizzas, and desserts in the making, and the spacious multi-nooked main dining area.
 
The soothing yet sexy décor pales only in comparison to the food. Shire is an accomplished, James Beard Award-winning chef with illustrious Boston restaurants such as Locke-Ober and Scampo to her name. At Blue Sky, Shire lives up to her reputation: bursting with flavor, the satisfying food is at once comfortable and sophisticated.
 
“I didn’t want it to be a fussy restaurant,” says Shire. “Nobody ever goes home hungry, but then on the other hand there is restraint. I don’t want piles of spaghetti on a plate.”
 
Diners, however, will find it difficult to restrain themselves — the food is infectiously good. With an entire section of the menu devoted to lobster, Shire shows her reverence for Maine ingredients. “Maine is all over the place,” says Shire. “I did a lot of research before I opened the restaurant, looking through all those little paper books published by churches.”

 
From fried to stuffed, stew to Bolognese sauce, lobster abounds. The lobster pizza is a not-to-miss house favorite — with a glass of wine on the porch, it is true summer perfection (rivaled only by the toothsome lamb pizza). Other menu sections include “Spuds & Veg,” “Hearth Cooking,” and “Maine” (a play on entrées, including deep fried short ribs and garlicky buttermilk fried chicken livers). “And there are some nods toward Canada,” adds Shire, describing the Canadian sugar pie and the haddock with an accompanying pork tourtière.

For Shire, the goal is simple: “I want [diners] to know that they’ve been in a chic restaurant, a Maine chic restaurant. And I want them to fall in love with the food.”
If the steamed chocolate cake finale has anything to do with it, it’s almost a guarantee.

Shire may be the star of Blue Sky, but Blue Sky itself is lighting up York Beach. The coastal village is experiencing something of a renaissance according to Don Rivers, the developer of the Atlantic House, a co-owner of Blue Sky, and a local Realtor. “About five years ago, the chamber of commerce formed a renaissance committee. The goal was to kick the beach up a few notches and to make it more of a year-round destination but not to change the flavor.”
The Atlantic, which now houses Blue Sky as well as a fifteen-room and eight condo hotel, cupcake café, children’s store, spa, wine and cheese store, and a women’s boutique, is just one of the examples of that goal coming to fruition.

“York Beach is a place where when you come, you always want to come back,” says Rivers. Ditto for its newest high-end restaurant. 

Blue Sky is located at 2 Beach Street on the second floor of the Atlantic House in York. In the summer the restaurant is open seven days a week, 5:30 to 10 p.m In July and August, lunch is served from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and brunch is from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sundays. Appetizers $9-$18, entrées $18-$38, desserts $7-$9. Handicap accessible. 207-363-0050. www.blueskyonyorkbeach.com