Candlelight dances softly on the copper-topped tables, casting a warm glow in the wood-paneled dining room, even on a cold, dark night. Snowshoes and antique saws double as decoration, giving the space a rustic feel. But at River Drivers Restaurant in Millinocket, the food is anything but.

In the kitchen of the Rice Farm lodge, which doubles as the rafting base for New England Outdoor Center, chef Jesse DuMais conducts a symphony of color, texture and flavor. His creations – pan-seared cod topped with a frizzle of flash-fried leeks and nestled in a bed of deep-purple cabbage, an appetizer of wild mushrooms and bacon stacked on puff pastry triangles – look too good to eat. But if you can’t get past the presentation, you’ll miss all the fun.

I know what you’re thinking: Fine dining in Millinocket? Well, get over it.

Foodies and outdoorsy types have known about River Drivers since it opened in 1997. It doesn’t exactly have “best-kept secret” status, for the simple reason that people don’t mind telling their friends about it. They figure no one else is hungry enough to drive an hour north for a meal, thus they’ll never have to jockey for a reservation.

The proverbial cat is out of the bag.

The good news is, they’re between seasons in the Magic City – too late for snowmobiling, too early for rafting, so the place may not be packed. The bad news is, the locals have known about this little gem forever, and the Bangor crowd caught on about a year later, lured by the promise of a “dining experience” for well under $100, for two, with drinks. So it’s almost always packed.

And that was before DuMais, a Frenchville native and Culinary Institute of America grad, returned to raise his family after a successful stint in Chicago. He arrived in the fall of 2004 to replace River Drivers’ renowned chef Herman Ammerman, who now teaches in a local school district.

It was a coup for owners Matt and Wendy Polstein, who had seen many chefs from away come and go. Their first chef came to Millinocket because he liked to fish. It was the winters he wasn’t too keen on. He lasted three months. Five chefs later, Ammerman came on the scene, but after a while, he wanted to branch out.

“We were kind of mindful,” Matt Polstein said over dinner on a recent evening. “Jesse is from northern Maine. People coming south have no preconceived illusions of what they’re coming to.”

For DuMais, it was a chance to own a home – in Chicago, that wasn’t an option.

“I have a house,” he said. “I have two small children. My family comes down. … Everybody knows each other. I know the lady at the bank now.”

But there are a few drawbacks. For starters, he doesn’t like to drive in the snow. Oh, and it’s a bit more difficult to find ingredients here.

“It’s very hard,” DuMais acknowledged. “Chicago’s an open market. Whatever you wanted, two days later you got it. Here, a regular order takes four to eight business days.”

He has cultivated relationships with local farmers and fishermen, though, and he’s learning to cater to a broader range of tastes.

The Polsteins started the restaurant to feed hungry rafters. They knew they didn’t want to serve piles of fried food or basic diner fare, but they never intended to become a dining destination, either. Their second chef had other ideas, though, and DuMais has tweaked it even more.

On a recent visit, the tasting menu ($40 per person) included house-cured salmon, grilled shrimp with a pomegranate glaze, seared scallop piri-piri, roast duck breast with saffron risotto and an oxtail glaze, and seared beef tenderloin with blue cheese mashed potatoes, caramelized onions and a white-bean puree.

But the meat-and-potatoes crowd had plenty from which to choose – a 22-ounce porterhouse with twice-baked potato and grilled flank steak with mashed potatoes, as well as the baked stuffed haddock for seafood lovers.

“Everywhere you go, it’s definitely an experience,” DuMais said. “It’s a diverse crowd that comes in, which makes things on our end a little more challenging.”

But the Polsteins and the crew at New England Outdoor Center love a challenge – in the 1980s, Matt was among the first outfitters in the state to think rafters might want amenities with their whitewater – things like showers and a hot meal. A restaurant was a natural fit. But fine dining may have been a harder sell.

“It was tough,” Wendy Polstein said. “I worked every single night, thinking, ‘We have to make this work.’ … [wondering], how do we get people from Bangor to say it’s worth the drive?”

Today, that’s what people from Bangor are saying. And people from Aroostook County. New Brunswick, even. And that’s not counting the rafters and Katahdin climbers from Massachusetts and Connecticut – it’ll be a month or so till they arrive. Better go now. Otherwise, you may have to wait until October.

For information or directions, visit www.neoc.com or call 723-8475. Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.