Mark on the Shore

Mark’s Score   8.5

The best part of travel, is not the sights or tourist activities. The best part of travel is stumbling onto interesting people and stories. However, stumbling onto an interesting story or person is rare, and that is what makes Amarin so special. Their story is eclectic, incongruous, and exceptional. 

Amarin’s story begins not here, but on the other side of the world in the central highlands of Vietnam. In 2012 Amarin began growing and roasting specialty-grade coffee following principles of sustainable cultivation, and fair economic treatment of growers. They joined forces with neighboring farms and created a cooperative and sold their coffee on the wholesale market. In 2019 they expanded vertically into retail by opening a coffee shop/bakery on Chincoteague Island, of all places.  The beans for their coffee shop were sourced solely from their farms in Vietnam. They quickly expanded to a second location in Salisbury and just last year opened a third shop in New Church, Virginia. Their coffee shops blend Vietnamese coffee culture with French bakery traditions. 

I was hiking on the Wallops Research Park Nature Trail and decided to stop for lunch at Amarin’s New Church location. I have driven by their shop dozens of times, but only recently realized it was a coffee shop. I had no idea who they were or what they did, but the place looked interesting, so I decided to stop for lunch. 

From the outside their shop looks like a warehouse, but once you pass through the door you enter a salubrious, chic, and vaguely Asian dining area.  As you walk to the counter, you pass a display of French patisseries comparable to anything I have seen in Paris. The French colonized Vietnam in the 19^th century, creating a French influenced café culture that survives to this day in Vietnam. The authentic French pastries combined with the Asian décor creates a pleasant cosmopolitan atmosphere.

I ordered the spring turkey sandwich, Amarin is a patisserie, so I also ordered a pineapple coconut Danish for dessert. It would be a crime to walk into a patisserie and not order a pastry. The spring turkey sandwich is served on, what they called a baguette with chèvre cheese, spinach, sun dried tomatoes and blackberry preserves. I thought the sandwich was OK, but not memorable. However, the pastry was worthy of Paris. It was flakey and crisp, the crême pat was delicately light and subtitle, and the coconut on the pineapple was toasted to golden brown perfection. 

I love living here, it is a great place to live. But I grew up in Boston, which is heavily influenced by Italian and French-Canadian immigrants. There is a wealth of choices for great bread and pastry in Boston. But not so here, it is hard to find a good baker on the Delmarva. So, the addition of an excellent coffee shop and bakery in our region is something worth celebrating. 

What else is there to do in Chincoteague?

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