The Lobstermen’s Pie from Monte’s Fine Foods was a special for Maine Lobster Week. Contributed / Monte’s Fine Foods

What are the ways to creatively serve a lot of lobster? Do you make giant lobster rolls? Serve a multi-course meal in which each course features lobster? What about adding it to other dishes, like pizza or toast? Last week, 16 Portland restaurants answered this question and imaginatively explored the ways that the state’s iconic crustacean could be prepared as part of Maine Lobster Week.

From Sept. 22-29, 60 restaurants across Maine celebrated Maine Lobster Week with special menu items or prix fixe menus. Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative facilitates the event with the goal of increasing consumption Maine lobster in the shoulder season, when tourist consumption of lobster decreases as tourism dips between summer and fall, but lobster catch remains high.

The event’s creation in 2021 was inspired in part by Maine Restaurant Week, said Marianne LaCroix, executive director of Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative. For a week each March, a slower time for restaurants generally, participating establishments serve fixed multi-course menus that are advertised through Maine Restaurant Week and drive customers through their doors.

Unlike Maine Restaurant weeks, restaurants participating in Maine Lobster Week are not required to serve a fixed menu and can just serve a signature lobster dish for the week. LaCroix said this was so that lobster shacks and smaller restaurants that would struggle to serve multiple courses can also participate.

Portland restaurants participating in Maine Lobster Week varied from lobster roll specialists, seafood restaurants and raw bars, to pizza parlors and Asian fusion establishments.

“It’s just really exciting to see. It really lets the chefs use their creativity. There’s a lot of unique dishes this week,” said LaCroix.

Restauranteur and chef David Turin has participated in Maine Lobster Week since it began in 2021 after participating in Maine Restaurant Week for over a decade.

“We’ve had really great success with it. It seems like a lot of people are eager to eat lobster whenever they can, for good reason, and gives us a nice opportunity to do some things that we normally wouldn’t do for a little mini pop-up week,” said Turin.

For Maine Lobster Week, his restaurant, David’s in Monument Square, offered a set course menu of lobster and tomato salad followed by lobster gnudi (gnocci-like dumplings) and lemon cake for $65. At David’s 388 in South Portland, diners could order an elote lobster roll sprinkled with Tajin, along with lobster corn chowder and brown butter ice cream.

Despite his inventive menus, Turin said lobster itself takes some extra pondering when figuring out how to serve it in new ways.

“Lobster is actually not that easy to cook with. It’s a wonderful ingredient, but it’s so delicate that it’s easy to overpower it,” said Turin. “We really focus on making lobster the focus, and not having a lot of things that take away from that delicate nature that it has.”

To encourage chef creativity, Monte’s Fine Foods held a competition between its back-of-house staff to determine who could make the best lobster pizza to add to the menu for Maine Lobster Week. The winner received a cash bonus of $250, an award plaque and the title of Monte’s Lobster Chef 2024.

“Our entire crew was here, and we just had fun with it. And we had runners-up that got prizes as well, but it was fun to see everybody’s take on the pie,” said Steve Quattrucci, the owner and general manager of Monte’s Fine Foods.

“And really, the winner was just fantastic. We just loved it,” he said.

Monte’s sous chef, Nick Visconti, took the title of Monte’s Lobster Chef 2024 with his “Lobstermen’s Pie” consisting of Maine lobster on a chowder-like base of caramelized onion, sherry, butter, breadcrumbs and provolone.

“The Lobstermen’s Pie kind of formed itself,” said Visconti. “I mean, lobster itself is just so succulent and delicious that you don’t really need to do much to it to make a delicious dish. You kind of got to let the lobster shine.”

Having recently moved to Maine after working in a seafood restaurant in Connecticut, Visconti appreciated the recognition at his new job, as well as his new plaque displayed “proudly on (his) mantle.”

Luke’s Lobster served the half-pound lobster roll for Maine Lobster Week. It is twice the size of its regular roll. Contributed / Photo by Jenn Bravo

For Maine Lobster Week, the national lobster roll company Luke’s Lobster began serving up its largest half-pound rolls, double the meat of their typical lobster rolls. Their flagship location in Portland sold 1,200 half-pound rolls for Maine Lobster Week 2023, and served up the rolls again for the week this year.

“Eight ounces may sound like a lot to somebody, but we realized our guests wanted it and were excited about it. We were really pleasantly surprised to see that they could certainly take that down,” said Meaghan Dillon, vice president of marketing at Luke’s Lobster.

At other Luke’s Lobster locations around the country that are counter-style shacks, the half-pound roll went on the permanent menu after being introduced last year. However, at their sit-down style Portland restaurant, the massive roll is reserved for Maine Lobster Week.

“We want to support the Maine lobster industry. Always, in any ways we can. Obviously, it’s something super important to us,” said Dillon. “We’re obviously buying for Maine lobstermen every day. So, anything we can do to support and just highlight it and bring awareness, it’s always great.”

Quattrucci also emphasized his restaurant’s support for the lobstermen of Maine as motivation for Monte’s Fine Foods participating in Maine Lobster Week.

“We’re very much locally oriented, and we support a lot of local farms and local producers in the store. We’ve got over 100 represented in the market and this was a natural extension of that ethos of supporting our local food economy,” said Quattrucci.

From the restaurant’s business side, Turin spoke about how it benefits Portland’s culinary industry as well as the lobster industry.

“The tourists are kind of going away, and local people don’t eat lobster that much. And it turns out that the tourists are definitely going away, but we have a lot of local visitors who say, ‘Yeah, we’ll come out for a lobster-focused dinner,’” said Turin.

“It’s great. I mean, it wouldn’t normally be our busiest time of the year, but we’ve had a lot of people come,” he said.