There's a little bistro in Damariscotta facing the waterfront, just a ways down from the back entrance of Reny's. It has been there for a little over a year, and though enough people are aware of it to have made business good, and sometimes booming, it's still something of a well-kept secret around these parts.

The small bistro-style restaurant is owned by the father and son team of Bernie and August DeLisle, and August's new wife and partner, Torie Van Horne, soon to be DeLisle (she thinks).

Bernie DeLisle has been in the restaurant business for 35 years as an owner and as a manager. He managed the Waterfront in Camden for several years.

In the April 2015 edition of Down East magazine, Van Lloyd's Bistro was listed as one of Maine's best new restaurants. It is described as an “operation (that) embraces a from-scratch philosophy and global influence ... A cozy, unexpected find on the Damariscotta waterfront.”

The trio found the space for their restaurant in what had been a print shop for 20 years. They tore down walls and drop-down ceilings, and pulled up old carpet.

“We gutted the place,” Van Horne said.

August DeLisle and Torie Van Horne sat down recently to talk about their restaurant, the food they serve, and their philosophy about food and cooking.

The interior has been transformed into a delightful space complete with a bar area that could double as a movie set, due to Van Horne's and DeLisle's backgrounds in set design. The four ceiling lights in the dining room are old Victrola horns that have been transformed into hanging art by the couple.

“Restaurant and theater tend to go hand-in-hand,” DeLisle said.

The arches framing the bar area came from a house in Portland that had been dismantled. The arches, along with the marble surface of the bar, and many of the chairs, came from an architectural salvage business in Portland.

Originally opened as a coffee house, the restaurant has been through a few phases. A week and a half in, someone asked about a dinner menu. The trio started serving lunch, or brunch, and dinner.

As quality is of utmost importance to them, they decided there wasn't enough time in the day to do both top-notch lunches and dinners. “If we can take the entire afternoon to prep an incredible meal for dinner, with really high quality, beautiful food, it's better to focus on doing that as best as we possibly can,” DeLisle said.

“It's kind of a personal problem,” Van Horne said. “We can't just do something. We have to do it to the absolute best of our abilities.”

The owners get most of their supplies and ingredients from local sources, including a grist mill in Scarborough for organic flours, Mill Cove in Boothbay Harbor for most of the restaurant's seafood, and vegetables from local farms. “Our philosophy is we try to be local and organic whenever possible, but if we can't get what we need locally, we expand to the New England area.

“If a farm has garlic scapes (described as a cross between garlic and asparagus) which are available right now, we'll get 10 pounds, and they'll show up on the menu,” DeLisle said. “It's one of those fleeting spring flavors. They're only around for a week or a week and a half.”

They also recently bought 10 or 15 pounds of ramps, described by DeLisle as a “pungent, oniony, wild leek.”

Pretty much everything on the menu is made in-house. When a corned beef sandwich was added to the menu, DeLisle said he brined the corned beef for 10 days, then braised it for five hours. He made the aioli and the sauerkraut, and asked their baker to make the rye bread. “Every single element in the sandwich was made in our kitchen, and it took us forever,” DeLisle said.

“We can't help ourselves,” Van Horne said. “All of the elements of the meal you get here are the best we can make.”

Their house-made, air-dried sausage, flavored butters (a lavender butter is being applied to a salad), breads, kimchi and sauerkraut all appear on their menu, in some form, at different times.

The couple reluctantly admitted that they don't make their own cheeses, but get them from local cheese makers — one from Rockland, and one from a creamery in Bristol.

“He has bred his own cheese cultures, using organic local milk, and aged the cheese for two months,” DeLisle said.

Don't expect to find any ordinary old white salt on the table. DeLisle said he recently read a book about salts.

“The majority of them are either evaporated or produced through a chemical process. Iodized table salt has nothing to do with salt in nature.”

Most of the salt at Van Lloyd's comes from the Maine Sea Salt Company in Machias. “He does an all evaporated Maine sea salt, completely solar-powered,” DeLisle said.

They also use black Hawaiian sea salts, a lime-infused salt and a French Maldon salt that has “super big flaky crystals.”

The menu at Van Lloyd's changes weekly.

“We choose a breakfast spot on Sunday mornings and we all sit down and have a meal, and then we go through the menu item by item,” DeLisle said.

Van Horne said they're always looking for ways to do something differently. “If we've done something completely expected, we've failed. We want everything to be delightful and different. Sometimes I think we tend to freak people out a little.”

The father, son and daughter-in-law all work together in the kitchen, and there are always two servers, a host and a bartender on duty, but all the employees pitch in wherever help is needed.

“I think you get better service if everybody is involved,” Van Horne said. “From the beginning we wanted it to be a real team effort. And we try to keep it a fun place to work.”

DeLisle said the menu is always changing and always growing. A disclaimer at the bottom states: “If we haven't smoked it, cured it, brined it, pickled it, cooked it or baked it ourselves, we don't serve it. Demand REAL food.”

The restaurant seats around 35 people, including the outside deck area. Kitchen hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Reservations are strongly recommended. Call 207-563-5005.