A little English> Searsport bakery offers treats both sweet and savory, with no shortcuts

Brits or Anglophiles hankering for a meat pie, sausage roll or Cornish pastie this St. Patrick’s Day can treat themselves to traditional British fare down Searsport way.

Sean Hogan, an Englishman with Irish ties, and his American wife, Kathy, run Periwinkles, a bakery and lunch place tucked in back of their home on U.S. Route 1, are drawing customers from as far south as Bath and as far north as Orono.

“Use the best products you can find,” Sean said of his business’s success. “We don’t do any shortcuts.” That means using fine ingredients such as Belgian chocolate and Swiss jam.

“If you put the best products in,” he said, “you’re going to get the best on the other end. It’s not rocket science.”

The Hogans opened Periwinkles just west of Searsport village less than a decade ago. The couple met in Philadelphia, where Sean had emigrated from England in 1980 to work at the Dickens Inn. The inn’s owner, a descendant of writer Charles Dickens, ran a Dickens Inn in London as well, and was expanding to the United States. Hogan had worked at the London inn as a baker.

Kathy Hogan had worked for Bell Atlantic and wanted out of the corporate world. “We were just fed up with cities,” she said. She has an uncle who lives in Cutler and she had visited Maine many times, so she and her husband began exploring the state as a place to relocate.

“It reminds me a lot of the west of Ireland,” Sean said. Though he grew up in Manchester, England, his parents were Irish. The Irish, though, “can’t bake worth a sod,” Sean lamented.

On weekends, the Hogans would drive from Philadelphia to Maine to scout possible locations to open a bakery. “We looked at a million different properties,” Kathy remembered.

Conventional business sense might make one to wonder whether Periwinkles’ location is ideal. The bakery is in the back of a fine old house on Route 1, but in an area well west of downtown Searsport and east of Belfast proper. The English, American and Irish flags waving out front catch the eye of passers-by, but it’s more than the colors that bring people in.

The Hogans and their 5-year-old daughter, Caitlin, live in the two-story house. The circular drive allows easy access from Route 1, and there is plenty of parking. Sean said people must choose to come to Periwinkles to eat, unlike an in-town bakery which can draw impulse customers.

But come they do.

“We have quite a large following,” Sean said. “And we have a lot of regulars. It’s a meeting place.”

A comfortable and cozy seating area is handy to the bakery’s counter, where glass cases display tempting treats. A more formal room, set off a bit from the counter area, is used for serving a traditional English tea.

Scones, croissants, Danish, cinnamon rolls and other baked goods are made fresh daily. Periwinkles makes pecan squares, which so impressed a customer that it was nominated for inclusion in Bon Appetit magazine. The recipe was submitted to the magazine, whose staff then re-created the sweets in its own kitchens, and gave the product its thumbs-up.

At lunch time, Sean’s English roots show in such offerings as steak-and-mushroom and steak-and-potato pies, sausage rolls, other meat pies, Cornish pasties (pronounced “pah-sties”) — which he describes as a pocket bread stuffed with beefstew, “the Englishmen’s answer to the burger” — as well as regular fare like soups (with homemade stock), sandwiches (made on bread Sean bakes), rolls and a very tasty original pizza.

Periwinkles makes cakes for weddings and holidays. The bakery also sells food wholesale to such outlets as Borders bookstore, Sunnyside Greenhouse in Bangor and area restaurants. In the summer, residents of seasonal communities like Bayside in nearby Northport frequent the bakery.

Periwinkles is open 8 a.m-4:30 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, and seven days a week in the summer. A full English tea is served only by appointment, with a minimum of four people, 2-4 p.m. on Sunday. Call 548-9910.