Don’t sleep on Lil Chippy. Excellent fish & chips place on Washington Ave. We no longer have to drive down to Biddeford for Fish & Whistle. Also, nice open space with good light, pretty child friendly.
We try to visit Portland as often as possible. Nice to have an active reporter on the ground. Not that I didn’t appreciate Dan’s intel from just up 95. So, consider this encouragement Ryan.
Cheers and thanks for the encouragement! Let me know if you’d like to share a bottle next time you’re in town. My cellar is still just getting started but there are a few fun things in there.
I’d be delighted. Now you need to get to work on the no-corkage policy. I say policy because a few months ago, I was chatting with the owner of MaIne & Loire. He said there is no state law prohibiting corkage. Interesting since every restaurant in Maine where I have inquired, says its against the law - with the exception of Chaval, which simply said they don’t allow it.
Yeah, it’s rather unfortunate. The only place I’ve found where I can bring a bottle is Schulte & Herr, which is tasty but one can only eat that sort of German food so often.
That is quite interesting, I always just assumed it was law and didn’t really think about it any further. I’ll ask around a bit and see if I can learn more.
Looks like there’s a reddit thread on this very topic and it seems that corkage was previously illegal but is no longer as of May 2023 (section 10). However, it seems like there still aren’t a lot of restaurants that have taken advantage of it being legal. The referenced thread lists as byo:
Of these, I’ve only taken a bottle to Shulte & Herr so I can’t vouch for it being possible at any of the others. Certainly worth a shot at a couple of them though.
Thanks for mentioning Maine et Loire. Brings back many fond memories of dining at Drifters Wife which was right next door and had the same owners. We had some great meals there, but sadly it closed (in 2020 IIRC). Life moves on…
We just booked a trip to Maine for July and I’m looking forward to trying some of these recommendations. We went there last September for the first time, and really enjoyed it, but we also did not plan ahead at all on restaurants (either in terms of research, or reservations), so we didn’t end up eating anywhere truly special. I imagine things will be a bit more busy in July, so I’m going to try to get ahead of it this time.
We really love Crown Jewel. It feels like a vacation on a vacation.
It is on an island, so you have to rent a water taxi or take the ferry. We used Fogg’s Water Taxi and Charters
July is jammed. Please reserve Fore Street, sooner rather than later. IMO one of the world’s great restaurants. I love the entire ambience, but my comment is based simply on food quality. They’ve been doing it right for 30 years, before ‘locavore’ was a thing. And Maine’s raw ingredients are second to none.
There are lots of reccos upthread. Fore Street is the toughest reservation, but Scales and Street & Company (same general ownership) are not walk-ins during the summer.
Fore Street reserves some table for walk-ins, but that’s not the best way to do it.
Brunswick (near where I live) is half an hour from Portland. 555 North and Noble Kitchen are the more upscale places, both really fine in their own way, but Taverna Khione (Greek) is my favorite here.
Almost all of the lobster shacks are BYOB, bring some great whites and save a few nights for those.
@Dan_Kravitz’s recommendations are spot on as always. I wanted to mention quickly that Scales also has really nice ambience in addition to very high quality seafood. Big windows, lots of natural light, and right on the water. My parents live in the midwest and really dug that experience because it’s so different from anything they can get at home.
If you’re in the city and want to grab a quick lobster roll, the Diamond St. location of Bite into Maine is also BYOB and in the middle of a slightly absurd number of great breweries. It’s a much more bare bones experience than something like Eventide but Eventide isn’t BYOB and my personal preference at Eventide is actually the oyster bun over the lobster roll but YMMV. Hope you enjoy your visit!
= Confirmed