My Maine Meal

Hugo’s, Honeypaw, Eventide, Holy Donut and Fore Side are all names much dropped and, by now, if you’ve been following, you’re thinking holy doughnut indeed, is this just hype?

Oddly or not, a surprisingly large amount of restaurants and bars in this small city wow the taste buds, and it’s mostly down to local, seasonal produce, including seafood and Maine-farmed meats. Cooking like our great grandparents did means fresher, and fresher means more flavor.

A dozen years ago, the annual Harvest on the Harbor food jamboree began as a celebration of Portland’s food scene, and this year’s Thursday through Sunday event, Oct. 17-20, begins with a grand benefit dinner, jointly prepared by a dozen local chefs. More events follow, including Oysterfest curated by Portland’s boutique Maine Oyster Co., which will bring together around 30 Maine oyster gatherers.

Like the festival, the Maine Food for Thought Tour, which Colorado transplants Bryce and Sarah Hach founded last year, is a food scene primer that also quickly sells out — book ahead for either.

This educational walking tour instructs on the Maine food system and wider global situations, including climate change, all while wandering through Old Port to meet some of the city’s passionate chefs and taste their creations. It’s enlightening: Who knew Portland had a world-champion pesto maker, Genoa native Paola Laboa, Solo Italiano’s chef-owner?

The tour begins in Union, the airy restaurant in the Press Hotel, whose name derives from the building’s original tenant, the Portland Press Herald. Chef Josh Berry presented a coconut milk-based seafood chowder made with hake, smoked trout and clams.

On an earlier September Sunday night, more stunning seafood — sweet Robin Hood’s Cove oysters topped with pickled pink garlic buds — made its way from Union’s open-plan kitchen. The pot roast was recommended, but I choose not to eat meat and was far from deprived with the tenderly braised Mexican spiced tofu served on top of a half-roasted sweet potato and perfectly finished with a sweet beet mole.

It’s not all down to Old Port. Downtown Portland is expanding into its residential East End, where Kittery’s Bob’s Clam Hut, the 60-year-plus seafood shack in Kittery, always a good stop on the drive up and down, opened last year. Bob’s fried clams can’t be beat, but its equally fresh fish tacos have taken off.

On an earlier May visit, on a rainy weekday, like many Portlanders that night I made a dash down narrow Fore Street and into an already bustling Evo Kitchen + Bar, a modern slender space with window walls onto the street.

Chef Matt Ginn, a “Chopped” winner, pairs southern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking with Maine ingredients, and, among seafood and meats, the delicately braised cauliflower with a sweet-spiced pomegranate relish and tahini rosettes and a creamy coconut milk panna cotta far outdid expectations.

Just recently, as the warm September day’s blue sky slowly faded to smoky darkness, I wandered along Congress Street toward the West End to Five Fifty-Five, which opened 16 years ago in an 1850s building, near the I.M. Pei-designed Portland Museum of Art and music venue, the State Theater.

Though far from showy, there’s a touch of refinement here as chef-owner Steve Corry presents a seasonally focused five-course tasting menu or a la carte dishes in his sedately lit, bilevel restaurant.

A Maine-grown heirloom tomato and peach salad with blistered shishito, basil purée and feta; and a strawberry mousse with honeyed Bavarian cream, and tart balsamic reduction were a gorgeous au revoir to summer flavors.

Flavor in Portland goes beyond food. At Union, the mixologist crafted a perfectly balanced bitter and sweet, orange zest spritzed Boulevardier with smoky Portland distilled Gunpowder Rye, sweet vermouth and Campari.

On Exchange Street, at Blyth & Burrows, a speakeasy-styled cocktail bar with superb food, the springtime-inspired Royal Oates blended aquavit, cognac, parsnip, cocoa butter, and oat milk into a creamy delicious cocktail. Yes, parsnip.

Down on the harbor, Liquid Riot’s New York Sour is made with the brewery-distillery’s oat whiskey, lemon juice, egg white and a red wine top. The Cure was playing loud as people hugged the day’s final rays out on the back deck, which gives great views of what is still a working waterfront, piled with lobster traps: Portland is still Portland and offers lobsters to eat almost anywhere.

Read originally printed article at The Patriot Ledger here.