Harding Lee Smith, chef and owner of The Front Room, is a Mainer by birth and graduate of Portland's Deering High School, Harding left Maine to experience the rest of the world. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree from Boston University, he moved to the San Francisco Bay area and attended the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena of the Napa Valley. Then, after an apprenticeship in Venice, Italy, Chef Smith located to Maui, Hawaii where he was chef of several well known restaurants. After six years on the island, family and the Red Sox were calling and he returned to Maine in the fall of 2003. After spending the winter of 2005 at the venerable Back Bay Grill, Harding embarked on the opening of his dream, a casual neighborhood restaurant and bar.