It started on Tuesday nights in February 2023 at Borsari Gallery in North Dennis — eight courses in an art gallery, a handful of people who showed up in spite of February, Mick Formichella cooking in borrowed space. If you were there then, you probably already knew what was happening. If you weren't, the James Beard Foundation got there eventually.
LUNE is at 587 Main Street in Dennis Port now, in a building that had been a gas station before it was an ice cream shop before it was a bakery. In 2024, Mick and Charlotte Formichella took over the space, reworked the interior — new plumbing, electrical, accessibility upgrades, the whole thing — and opened in May. The old bones are still present in a way that feels intentional: a room that's had a lot of lives, and isn't trying to hide any of them.
Charlotte grew up on her family's farm in Harwich Port — the same farm where Mick now keeps a kitchen garden for the restaurant. She runs the front of house and the wine program. Mick runs the kitchen. They met on Cape Cod, spent years in Portland working in serious kitchens, and came back. That's the short version of the backstory, and it's enough.
Less than two years after those Tuesday nights at Borsari Gallery — and only about eight months after opening the permanent Dennis Port restaurant — the James Beard Foundation named LUNE a 2025 semifinalist for Best New Restaurant. One of two Massachusetts restaurants in that category; the other was Somaek, in Boston. LUNE didn't advance to the finalist round, but landing on that list at all, at that age, in a 35-seat room on Route 28 in Dennis Port, put a small kitchen into a national restaurant conversation most Cape Cod dining rooms never enter.
At the Mangia culinary competition at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, LUNE won the Best Sauce Award for the second consecutive year — with attendees voting it number one on both days of the event.
The menu is French-influenced and changes every week based on what Mick's farmers, fishermen, and foragers bring in. The sourcing is on the website, and it reads like a map of people who live here: Cape Fish & Lobster in Hyannis, Big Rock Oyster Company in Harwich, Bartlett's Farm in West Barnstable, Cape Abilities in Dennis, Chatham Bars Inn Farm in Brewster, and the kitchen garden on Charlotte's family farm in Harwich Port. What you eat Thursday is not what anyone ate last Thursday.
Six seats at the counter surrounding the open kitchen — Mick is right there, nothing hidden. The rest of the room is small tables with bench seating, art on the walls, wine bottles. Either brave or confident, depending on the night. Probably both.
LUNE is open Wednesday and Sunday from 5 p.m. (à la carte) and Thursday through Saturday from 5:30 p.m. (tasting menu only). Reservations are required for the tasting menu and strongly recommended on à la carte nights. The restaurant books five or more weeks out. Cancellations surface more often than you'd expect — it's worth checking the day before. Reserve via OpenTable.
LUNE · 587 Main Street, Dennis Port · 508-237-6597