The 10 Best Restaurants in Portland ME

Eleven Madison Park alumnus Colin Wyatt cooks Maine's most disciplined eight courses — book three weeks out for a deal dinner.

Twelve opened in 2022 in the Portland Foreside development with a pedigree that reads like a recruiting sheet: executive chef Colin Wyatt came from Eleven Madison Park, pastry chef Georgia Macon from Tartine, the general manager from Per Se. What that buys you is precision — plates timed to the second, sauces reduced to exactly the right gloss, a tasting menu that builds instead of wandering. It is the one Portland kitchen cooking at a national-restaurant register, and it knows it.

The dish to know: the prix-fixe tasting, from $82, eight or so courses that read the New England coastline season by season; à la carte mains run $30 to $46 if you would rather graze. The wine pairing is built into the menu, not bolted onto it. 115 Thames Street puts you on the water in Portland Foreside, in the room that finally made the national press stop treating Portland as a lobster-roll town.

For our editors this is Portland's close-a-deal table — long enough to seal something, composed enough to talk over. Also strong for a birthday or a first date that means it. Skip it if you want a quick, loose meal: the tasting runs long, and the room runs it on its own clock. Read the full Twelve review, then book.

Jake Stevens rolls the pasta by hand off Free Street — a James Beard semifinalist's room; book it for a birthday.

Leeward is the work of chef Jake Stevens and his wife Raquel, who runs the floor. They opened in March 2020 in a corner of the old Porteous department store and were a James Beard Best New Restaurant nominee almost immediately; Stevens has been a Best Chef: Northeast semifinalist as recently as 2025. The pasta is made in-house, every day — the tell is the bite, a fresh strand that holds tension rather than collapsing, which is harder to get right than a dried box and impossible to fake.

What gets ordered: whatever pasta is on that night's short list, because the dough changes with what came in. The wine list leans Italian and is priced to be drunk, not collected. 85 Free Street sits in a 5,000-square-foot former menswear room that Raquel furnished out of thrift finds, so the polish is in the cooking and the welcome rather than the upholstery — which is exactly the right order of priorities.

For our editors this is a Portland birthday table — generous, warm, built for a long sit. Also strong for a first date or a relaxed client dinner. Not the room for a silent power play; it is loud in the good way and the tables are close. Read the full Leeward review, then book.

Sam Hayward's soapstone hearth has roasted Bangs Island mussels since 1996 — still Portland's surest table; book it to impress out-of-town guests.

Fore Street is the room that taught the country to take Portland seriously. Sam Hayward and Dana Street opened it in June 1996 around a brick-and-soapstone hearth — wood oven, grill, and turnspit, all visible from most of the tables — and Hayward won the James Beard Best Chef: Northeast award in 2004 for the cooking that comes off it. Nearly thirty years on, the fire still does the work no convection oven can: a hard, dry exterior char with the interior left alone.

The dish to know: the wood-oven-roasted Bangs Island mussels with garlic and almonds, and the turnspit-roasted pork loin, which bastes itself as it turns. The menu is printed daily and changes with the catch and the farm deliveries. 288 Fore Street, in the Old Port, is the address every visiting chef asks about — book it when you want to show someone what Maine cooking actually is.

For our editors this is the table to impress clients and out-of-towners; also a strong birthday or first-date room. Skip it if you want a quiet two-top — the dining room is large, busy, and hums. Read the full Fore Street review, then book.

Chris Gould's 1828 trading house runs small plates in four registers — Raw, Cold, Hot, Sweet; book it for a working dinner.

Central Provisions is chef Chris Gould's small-plates room, opened in the winter of 2014 inside an 1828 trading house in the Old Port and nominated for a James Beard Best New Restaurant the same year; Gould was a 2026 Best Chef: Northeast semifinalist. He trained at Uni and Clio in Boston, and it shows in the organisation — the menu is sorted into Raw, Cold, Hot, and Sweet, a structure that forces the kitchen to commit to a temperature and a technique on every plate rather than hiding behind a sauce.

What gets ordered: a spread across all four sections — start raw, end hot, let the table build its own progression. Globally sourced technique on Maine ingredients, which is the whole Portland argument in one room. 414 Fore Street, exposed brick and a tight downstairs, is perpetually packed; the bar is the move if you walk in without a reservation.

For our editors this is a flexible close-a-deal or first-date table — you order while you talk, so the food never stops the conversation. Not for a group that wants its own plated courses; this is a share-everything room, and a control-eater will fight it. Read the full Central Provisions review, then book.

The brown-butter lobster roll on a steamed bao bun won Taylor and Wiley a James Beard — go for the oysters; book or queue.

Eventide Oyster Co. is the room that put Big Tree Hospitality — Arlin Smith, Andrew Taylor, and Mike Wiley — on the national map; Taylor and Wiley took the James Beard Best Chef: Northeast in 2017. The signature is the brown-butter lobster roll, picked meat tossed in nutty browned butter and served warm in a steamed Chinese bao bun rather than a split-top frankfurter roll. It sounds like a gimmick. It is, in fact, a better delivery system: soft, faintly sweet, built to carry the butter.

The dish to know: that lobster roll, plus a half-dozen Maine oysters from the granite-and-crushed-ice bar, dressed with the house "ice" mignonettes — frozen tableside shavings of red-wine, horseradish, and kimchi instead of a watery pour. 86 Middle Street, in the Old Port, takes a long walk-in line as well as reservations, and the line moves.

For our editors this is the easiest table on the list to love — a first date, a birthday, a casual client lunch. Skip it if you need a hushed, white-tablecloth setting: it is bright, tiled, and loud, and that is the point. Read the full Eventide Oyster Co. review, then book.

A working-wharf seafood house on Maine Wharf — fried clams and a raw bar over the harbour; book it for a relaxed group.

Scales sits on Maine Wharf, on Portland's working waterfront, next to the Casco Bay ferry terminal — a glass-walled room over the water where the boats that supply it actually dock. It is the most polished of the city's classic seafood houses: a New England template — fried clams, raw bar, whole fish — executed cleanly, with the kind of frying discipline that keeps a batter crisp and a clam tender rather than rubbery. The harbour view does a lot of the romantic work, and the kitchen does the rest.

What gets ordered: the raw-bar tower to start, then the fried seafood and whatever whitefish — halibut, hake — came off the day boats. This is fishery cooking, not invention, judged on freshness and timing, and it holds up. 68 Commercial Street puts the harbour at your elbow; ask for a window table when you book.

For our editors this is a team-dinner and visitor table — easy, generous, scenic, good for a group. Not the room for a hushed proposal; it is bustling and bright, and the view is shared with the whole dining room. Read the full Scales review, then book.

A 1989 cobblestone-alley room that still makes the best Lobster Diavolo on the coast — book it for a first date.

Street & Co. has been doing Mediterranean seafood on Wharf Street since 1989, and it remains the most romantic dining room in the Old Port: a low, brick-and-beam space on a cobblestone alley, copper pans overhead, fish cooked à la minute on a flat-top in full view. The kitchen does not chase trends. It does the classics with the timing that makes them sing — garlic that toasts but never burns, shellfish pulled the second it opens.

The dish to know: the Lobster Diavolo for Two, a spicy tomato seafood stew of mussels, clams, and calamari finished with a whole lobster over linguine — routinely called one of the best plates of seafood pasta on the East Coast, and the reason most people book. 33 Wharf Street, on the cobbles, seats you close to your date and close to the pans.

For our editors this is the Old Port first-date room — dim, intimate, built for two. Skip it for a big group or anyone who wants elbow room; the tables are tight and the alley setting is snug by design. Read the full Street & Co. review, then book.

Big Tree's handmade-noodle bar runs smoked-lamb khao soi through a Burmese coconut curry — go for a casual birthday.

The Honey Paw is Big Tree Hospitality's noodle bar, next door to Eventide on Middle Street, and the most quietly ambitious cooking in the group. The hook is the noodles — made in-house, with the chew and irregularity hand-pulled dough gives you and extruded packets never will — carrying dishes drawn from Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Singapore, and southern China onto Maine ingredients. The technique is real; the framing is loose and fun.

What gets ordered: the smoked-lamb khao soi — house noodles, fermented mustard greens, lime, and a Burmese-style coconut curry — and the dolsot bibimbap with grilled scallops, bonito, and kimchi crackling in a hot stone bowl. These are not fusion gimmicks; they are specific regional dishes cooked with intent. 78 Middle Street, Old Port, no reservations for small parties — put your name down and have a drink at Eventide while you wait.

For our editors this is a low-key birthday or first-date table — bright, fast, fairly priced. Skip it if you want quiet or a long sit; it is a counter-and-stools room that turns tables and means to. Read the full The Honey Paw review, then book.

Bones Kim folds Cambodian and Cantonese technique into Maine seafood — on Esquire's 2024 best-new list; book the thirty-seat room early.

Oun Lido's is the newest room on this list and the one critics fought over fastest. Chef Bounahcree "Bones" Kim — whose parents emigrated from Cambodia — opened it in the summer of 2024 and was on Esquire's Best New Restaurants in America that December, the only Maine entry, at number fifteen. The cooking braids Cambodian and Cantonese technique through Maine seafood: prahok and lemongrass meeting day-boat fish, with the precise wok and braise discipline a Cantonese kitchen demands.

The dish to know: whatever the night's seafood plate is — the menu is short and moves with the catch — built on the Cambodian-Cantonese framework Kim grew up eating. Esquire's line was that the food "tastes like home, no matter where home is," which is the right read. 30 Market Street, in the Old Port, seats only about thirty; this is the hardest reservation in the city right now, so watch the booking drop.

For our editors this is the first-date and discovery table — small, personal, genuinely new. Skip it if you need flexibility or a big group; thirty seats and a tight menu mean the room dictates the terms, not you. Read the full Oun Lido's review, then book.

Genovese chef Paolo Laboa won the 2008 World Pesto Championship — order the trofie al pesto; book for a client dinner.

Solo Italiano is chef Paolo Laboa's Ligurian room on Commercial Street. Laboa is from Genoa, won the 2003 Best Young Chef in Italy and the 2008 World Pesto Championship, and trained a young Danny Bowien at Farina in San Francisco before landing in Maine. Pesto sounds simple; doing it the Genovese way is not — basil pounded, never blade-chopped, so the leaves bruise rather than oxidise, Ligurian olive oil, aged cheese, the whole thing built in a marble mortar to a specific emulsion. He brought that exactness with him.

What gets ordered: the trofie al pesto — the hand-rolled twists the dish was made for, dressed with the championship sauce — and whatever else is fresh off the pasta board that night. The wine list is genuinely Italian and fairly priced. 100 Commercial Street, on the waterfront, is calm enough to talk business over a bottle of Barolo.

For our editors this is the table to impress a client or run a quiet deal; also a strong birthday or first date. Skip it if you want fireworks or invention — this is a precise, traditional kitchen, and that restraint is the whole point. Read the full Solo Italiano review, then book.