Restaurants in Maine

Lobster shore dinners, lobster rolls, lobster pie, lobster bisque, and lobster stew are stars of the Maine shoreline, but there’s so much more to the Pine Tree State. New England boiled corned beef dinners are a treat in old-school diners, which make leftovers into red flannel hash. Muffins are the favored morning breadstuff inland and along the coast. Up north along the International Boundary look for the buckwheat pancakes known as ployes, and for Yankee variations of Quebec’s French-fry and cheese curd favorite, poutine.

Maine’s Most Famous Dishes

Picked lobster meat is piled high in a long bun that has been butter-grilled on its sides ... Maine lobster roll

Lobster Roll: Find this dish near you

Scoops of strawberry, pistachio, and vanilla ice cream accompany a slice of 4-layer chocolate cake.

Ice Cream

One big, bright red, ready-to-eat lobster perches atop a pile of steamer clams on a paper placemat.

Lobster

Chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting ... all butter all the time

Chocolate Dishes

Maine’s Best Restaurants

Eagles Nest

BREWER, ME

Beal’s Lobster Pier

SOUTHWEST HARBOR, ME

Monica’s Chocolates

LUBEC, ME

Gifford’s Ice Cream

SKOWHEGAN, ME

Big G’s

WINSLOW, ME

Young’s Lobster Pound

BELFAST, ME

Styrofoam cup holds pale green mint ice cream streaked with pieces of Oreo cookie.
Round Top Ice Cream

DAMARISCOTTA, ME

Shaw’s Ridge Farm

SANFORD, ME

Toots Ice Cream

NORTH YARMOUTH, ME

Tubby’s Ice Cream

WAYNE, ME

Beals Ice Cream

PORTLAND, ME

Smiling Hill Farm

WESTBROOK, ME

Hi-Hat Pancake House

FARMINGDALE, ME

Duckfat

PORTLAND, ME

Shain’s of Maine

SANFORD, ME

Portland Pie Co.

SCARBOROUGH, ME

One big, bright red, ready-to-eat lobster perches atop a pile of steamer clams on a paper placemat.
Mabel’s Lobster Claw

KENNEBUNKPORT, ME

Apple pie is topped with a crust ribboned with streaks of caramel
Doris’s Cafe

FORT KENT, ME

Boiled dinner: corned beef with beets, rutabagas, potato, cabbage, and carrots
Moody’s

WALDOBORO, ME

Becky’s

PORTLAND, ME

Helen’s Restaurant

MACHIAS, ME

Maine Articles & Guides

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Picked lobster meat is piled high in a long bun that has been butter-grilled on its sides ... Maine lobster roll

The Lobster Roll Honor Roll

Maine is the only state in America that features a picture of cooked food on its license plate. On a white background behind the tag's blue numbers and above...

Shore Thing

The coast of Maine and the waters that batter it are a hundred shades of gray. But in the summer, on picnic tables all along the waterfront, bright red...

Monster Hash

We’ve never met a cooked potato we didn’t like. Baked with butter, salt-boiled, fire-roasted, puréed with cream, au gratin, dauphinois, frittered, and french fried—all are surefire transformations of the homely...

Speaking Frankly

Cole Farms waitress Dawn Ross grieves as she arrives at our booth with a steaming-hot plate of franks and beans: “The red hot dog is going the way of...

Open-face "real Italian" sub from Portland, Maine

Now That's An Italian

We love hoagies, heroes, grinders, blimps, zepps, wedges, po’ boys, and submarines. But until recently, we were ignorant of one of the genre’s best regional variants, the Italian, which...

A Slice of Diner Heaven

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Yankee Top Dogs

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Gimme Shelter

Originally Published 1997 Gourmet Magazine After a good day of boldly eating where no food writers have eaten before—truck stops, diners, smoke shacks, even the occasional scurrilous road-house that anchors...

A full plate of fresh oysters on the halfshell a must order at any seafood restaurant

The Essential 22 Seafood Restaurants in the US

Seafood is a delicacy that has been enjoyed since the beginning of time. Its flavors are unique and diverse, and it can be cooked in many ways. That is...

A lobster roll with a ramekin of butter, ready to drizzle

Northeast Seafood Crawl

For a mouthwatering summer road trip to sleeves-up joints surrounded by magnificent scenery, you can’t beat a seafood-eating expedition along New England's coast. At waterside picnic tables and roadside drive-ins, in...

The One Must-Eat Food in Each State, and Where To Get It

Unique Regional Dishes After 40 years and 5 million miles spent on the road looking for America's best regional food, we've assembled a list of the quintessential, must-eat food in...

Lobster roll

6 best restaurants in New England

Looking for some stops along your Road trip?  Check out our picks for the 6 best restaurants in New England.  This is New England, so there is a plethora...

Clam Shack - Lobster Roll

14 Best Lobster Rolls in New England

Bad lobster rolls are easy to come by.  We've done the research and have found the best lobster rolls in New England for you! In Connecticut they have the...

Picnic table holds a plastic cup with a balance of lemonade and ice tea ... Maine lobster roll

Yankee Grape-Nuts

Originally marketed in 1897 to compete with granula, which was the predecessor to granola, Grape-Nuts is an unlikely fun dessert. But in the world of Yankee cookery, the little...

Widman’s Candy Shop - Hot Air

12 Best Chocolatiers from Coast to Coast

Twelve champion chocolatiers, from the Oregon coast to downeast Maine.

Beautiful Vintage Diners

The term diner has come to mean almost any inexpensive cafe that serves breakfast. But true diners are an elite class of eatery. They are mid 20th century design...

Laurel Diner - Corned Beef Hash

Heavenly Corned Beef Hash

The only possible happy exclamation incited by corned beef hash spooned from a can is "Arf!" But freshly chopped and sizzled to a crisp, crowned with poached eggs eager...

Oyster Bar - Manhattan Chowder

Clam Chowders of the Northeast

The northeast has four main kinds of clam chowder. Manhattan is tomato-red and full of vegetables, rarely served northeast of New York City. South Coast, a specialty of Connecticut...

Destination Donuts

Donut devotion as fervid as the commitment devotees have for barbecue. Everybody has a favorite kind. From robust cake sinkers to featherweight glazed, styles vary dramatically. In our experience,...

Maine Diner - Indian Pudding

Yankee Indian Pudding | Roadfood Bests

Indian pudding is one of New England’s fundamental comfort foods. Despite its name, it is not a native American dish adapted by colonist cooks. Early settlers considered just about...

Ploye | Maine's Buckwheat Pancake | Roadfood Bests

Unique to northernmost Maine, the ploye is a buckwheat pancake cooked only on one side. Its underneath gets crisp while the top stays soft and develops countless little holes...

Julian Pie Company - Apple Crumb Pie

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Crumb-topped, lattice-topped, or layered with caramel and welcoming a scoop of ice cream on top, apple pie is everywhere from coast to coast. For your pleasure, a baker's dozen...

Custard at its Creamiest

Although ice cream tends to be more butterfatty, frozen custard tastes richer because it traditionally is made with egg yolks. Even when eggs are not part of the formula,...

America's Best Hot Dogs

There's no point getting into a flame war over which American hot dog is best. It's impossible, because the nation's hot dogs are so diverse.  However, we will go...

Lobster roll on a round bun

New England Shore Dinner

Along the Northeast's Atlantic coast, the term "shore dinner" doesn't just mean some seafood on a plate. Descendant of Algonquin clambakes in which clams and corn were layered in...

On a sunny picnic table, fried clams are piled high in a red-checked cardboard boat.

Fried Clams | Whole Belly | New England Roadfood Bests

Few eats stir Yankee passions more intensely than fried clams. Most devoted clamophiles insist on whole belly clams (the big gooey ones), and while clam strips do tend to...

Great Maine Recipes

Maine Haddock Chowder

Slice of maple wal

Maple Walnut Pie

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