Luke’s Lobster

Waterfront Dining: Portland Has Few Choices But What There Is Offer Prime Views and Going Out of Town Is Worth a Short Trip for Waterfront Vistas

May 21, 2021 / / Restaurants

For a peninsula city, the choice of waterfront dining remains slim.  Luke’s Lobster and EVO X are the two prime spots where you are at the water’s edge.  The former is easily accessible. But plan for a long walk down Portland Pier from Commercial Street  to the end because whatever parking that’s available on the pier is choice, with few options to find a spot.  The same might be true for EVO X, on the grounds of the former Sprague compound, the Fore Points Marina, 443 Fore St.  Last year you could park in an adjoining lot, but that’s now filled with construction vehicles as the site is slowly being developed with an office building  (Sun Life), a retail center (where Portland restaurant EVO will re-locate to); hotel and residential condos and rentals are still far off in this 10 acre development marvel in the city’s Eastern Waterfront.

The view for city waterfront dining doesn’t get much better than Luke’s Lobster on Portland Pier, Circa summer 2020

There’s a few restaurants off Commercial Street that offer views of the harbor but they’re not the same as eating at the water’s edge.  Co-developer Case Prentice says that EVO X will be open today.  But when I went there yesterday it looked far from  ready for its seasonal debut.  Time will tell. Still it’s worth waiting for since chef Matt Ginn of EVO fame oversees the food prep at this formidable food-truck kitchen.

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Take Two: Luke’s Lobster Redux

June 15, 2019 / / Restaurants

The second time around at Luke’s Lobster (see previous impressions) left me high and dry.  Granted the noon hour at lunch  this week was not as brilliant a sunny day as it was on my first visit.  Instead the weather was chilly, wet and dreary. Though the view was just as jaw-dropping, and the service was also excellent.  But  the free parking on the pier that existed on opening week turned into metered parking at 3 bucks an hour.

Also on my first visit the staff boasted that the first-floor dining room was an order-and-eat deal.  No table service.  Upon entering you placed your order at the front desk, paid for it and picked a high top, table or bar stool to eat.  The food was brought to you.

Though a gray day, the place still looks bright and appealing

Now it’s less casual with table service–a  lobster pound with urban stripes.

Luke’s Lobster is everywhere: It’s like the Whole Foods/Amazon of lobster, with locations from Boston, New York, Las Vegas, Miami, Tokyo, et al, spawning like guppies.

The staff was not sure if at the Portland Pier location that the table service thing was just a weekend event or seven days.

On my Thursday visit,  the restaurant was busy at noontime, filled with tourists, some off the cruise ships—the type you can spot anywhere, if you know what I mean, as though each male diner—60-somethings,  with gold chains and dyed hair, if any, — pulled up in  Dodge GTOs.


I’m working my way through the menu with each visit.  This time I picked fried clam bellies.  I looked for a clam roll, but the menu offered either a clam plate ($19) with nothing else or the platter ($22) with fries, slaw and pickle.  Twenty-two dollars is the average price for clam plates or baskets at many places in Maine within a 100-mile radius.  Two Lights offers it at $21.99 including biscuit, fries and slaw.

At Luke’s the color of the fried and battered/breaded clams was sort of gray rather than golden hued. According to an early devotee of the restaurant he found out that the clams are coated in rice flour, which is gluten free, and thus the lack of deep color. Read more…

First Look & First Bite: On the Waterfront at Luke’s Lobster

June 9, 2019 / / Restaurants

Portland has two distinguishing features that separate it from other cities looking to make a difference.  One fact is that it’s one of the shortest cities in America with a skyline of skimpy skyscrapers as high as a paltry 10-12 stories and residential buildings (mostly overpriced condos) topping out at 4 to 5 stories high.  What’s left behind is for the average Portlander given short shrift to enjoy the city’s other attribute, views of and proximity to the water in a city known as The Peninsula, which means being surrounded on three sides by water.  You’d never know it.

That has changed with the opening of Luke’s Lobster at the end of Portland Pier in the heart of downtown Portland.  It has stunning views of the harbor being mere inches away from the water’s edge. It has navigated the Byzantine zoning laws that rule what’s commonly known as the working waterfront (which is more precisely the heart of the  working waterfront on the western end of Commercial Street).  And it handled it brilliantly and beautifully.

The dock, the pier and Luke’s at the water’s edge at the end of Portland Pier

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