Portland, Maine, Is One of the Best Food Cities in the U.S.—Here’s How to Eat Your Way Through It

The minute I crossed the Piscataqua River Bridge connecting New Hampshire to Maine, I felt a gnawing in my belly. The weather was classic coastal New England: cold, wet, and foggy. At 3:30 p.m., it was a little late for lunch. But the smell of the ocean and the sound of the seagulls told me, a born-and-raised New Englander, two things: that I was home, and that I needed a lobster roll. 

When I was a child, my parents had summer houses in Ogunquit and, later, York—two seaside villages that embody the “Vacationland” motto still printed on Maine license plates. Between my mother’s clam chowder and the local sweet corn, we felt no need to venture north to Portland, even to visit the childhood home of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (because of his time at Harvard University, we Bostonians claim him as one of our own).

So on this October day, I was finally going to Portland. But first I took a detour to Bite into Maine, a food truck in Fort Williams Park, just south of the city. I ordered the “picnic”: the freshest lobster in a toasted roll, doused in melted butter from a silver teapot. Portland Head Lighthouse and a fleet of charcoal clouds were my backdrop as I ate it at an outdoor table in the rain.

Portland is well established as one of the best food destinations in the United States. Trawlers in the harbor collect the day’s catch for the city’s restaurants—of which there is one for every 200 people, even before the tourists arrive. Maine has the country’s oldest organic state growers’ association, and the Portland Farmers’ Market has been operating continuously since 1768, selling the highest quality cheese, berries, flour, meat, and vegetables, along with every other conceivable ingredient, to area residents and chefs.

Some of these are natives; others have landed in the city from elsewhere and blended Down East flavors with new culinary styles. “Is there any city our size in this country that has one Eritrean restaurant? And I’m asking ’cause we have two,” said Dugan Murphy, who runs Black History Walking Tours. (Portland was a center of the Abolitionist movement and a stop on the Underground Railroad.) 

My base in the city was the Longfellow Hotel, which sits among the Victorian mansions of the leafy, residential West End. Co-owner Tony DeLois, a fourth-generation Mainer, came back to raise his family after working for Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group in New York City. Recognizing the need for a hotel that was at once modern, stylish, and historic, DeLois and his brother Nate opened the Longfellow in May 2024. As I stepped into a lobby that somehow channeled Paris and Copenhagen—and yet, with its walls hung with seafaring paintings, felt one hundred percent Maine—it was clear he had succeeded.

Right next door to the Longfellow is Tandem Coffee Roasters, where I lined up for breakfast along with what seemed like half the city. As a taste of epicurean adventures to come, I had the banana bread, which came crusted with toasted sesame seeds, crowned with a pillow of cream cheese and garnished with olive oil and black pepper. 

Portland’s identity as a culinary capital can be traced back to 1996, the year Sam Hayward opened his seminal Fore Street restaurant. “Before that, Portland was a rough fishing town, where people stopped on their way to summer camp or their island house,” said Don Lindgren, owner of Rabelais: Fine Books on Food & Drink. That all changed with Fore Street, which, along with Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, and New York’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns, joined what we now call the farm-to-table movement in the U.S. Connoisseurs began to fly in for dinner, and word started to spread. “They told people that Portland was a place for gastronomy,” Lindgren said. Hayward and a few other pioneers created fertile ground for a restaurant culture, and began a tradition of investing in talent—sending young chefs to apprentice elsewhere, then inviting them back to Maine with sharpened skills and fresh visions. 

Portland’s opportunities were what drew Jake Stevens, chef-owner of Leeward. Stevens, who creates Italian dishes with hyperlocal ingredients, was a semifinalist in this year’s James Beard Awards. It’s hard to find an excellent bucatini alla gricia, even in Rome, but his was perfect, packed with roasted guanciale. “In 2017, when I first moved here, the cost of opening a restaurant was much more accessible compared with New York, San Francisco, or even Portland, Oregon,” the latter being his hometown. (Stevens acknowledged this is changing: commercial rents, along with all Portland real estate prices, are rising faster than the national average.)

The next morning I drove to the Deering Center neighborhood to meet James Beard Award winner Atsuko Fujimoto at her small but magnificent Norimoto Bakery. Standing in her toasty kitchen, her apron blotched with flour, Fujimoto told me how she had moved to Portland from Japan in 2001 with her now-husband to work as a journalist, but quickly switched course. She got a job at Fore Street, where Hayward put her to work in the pastry department, then moved to the Standard Baking Co., which is owned by the same company. 

As we chatted I tried Fujimoto’s Danish pastry, made with Maine butter and speckled with cranberries; after that came a flavor bomb of a Chinese mooncake. Her version, she says, is similar to a rich gâteau basque, but unlike its French counterpart, it’s filled with savory adzuki beans. Blending European and American techniques learned at Hayward’s establishments with Japanese flavors and Maine ingredients adds up to something Fujimoto called “deeply Portland.” 

After all that pastry, I needed a walk—not least because I had plans to visit three restaurants for dinner. (“It’s how you do Portland,” one acquaintance said. “A few bites at a time.”) In the late-afternoon sunshine, the three-mile path around Back Cove delivered postcard views at every turn, and prepared me for my first meal, at Calafia Cantina y Fonda, where the fresh, bright flavors are inspired by Baja California. Co-owner Dominique Gonzalez, a San Diego transplant, opened the restaurant in 2024, and it dovetails her Mexican roots with New England’s seafood bounty. Cases in point: crisp, savory churros made with Jonah crab and a tostada with Maine bluefin tuna, chili broth, and avocado. If I lived in Portland, I thought, I might eat here every night. 

Next I took an Uber to newcomer Magissa. Nancy Klosterides, who co-owns the place, recommended I try the whipped ricotta with rosemary, walnuts, pistachios, and Greek honey, then a dish called Paros chicken, baked and crunchy, that was served with a mustard velouté. Everything tasted sensational, and the atmosphere was as festive as a Greek island taverna in summertime. 

Last stop of the night was Twelve, located on the waterfront in the center of town. In recent decades, the canneries and warehouses have been polished to haute New England refinement. Twelve is a chic space with minimalist art placed just so and a wide-open, immaculate kitchen. 

Chef Colin Wyatt went to college in Maine, his wife’s home state, and spent several years in the kitchen at New York’s Eleven Madison Park. He returned to Portland during the pandemic and opened Twelve in 2022. “We wanted to create all the benefits of fine dining, without the stuffiness,” he said. “If this were in New York, it would probably not be considered a fine-dining restaurant.” I disagreed: the attentive service and serene atmosphere presented a suitably elevated backdrop for the marvels from his kitchen. I went all-in for Maine: a brown-butter lobster roll served on a croissant created by his pastry chef, Georgia Macon, and, for dessert, an ice cream sandwich made with corn and blueberries. 

A few minutes’ walk from the Longfellow Hotel, I found Burundi Star Coffee, started by André Nzeyimana and Jocelyne Kamikazi. The couple emigrated from Burundi in 2006 and now source all their beans there. Both were born into coffee-growing families, and they recently returned to reclaim and revitalize their family farms. As I sipped my mocha, Andre pointed to a carved relief of East Africa on the wall. “Whenever someone comes inside the shop, we show them the map of Burundi, so they know where it is,” he said.

Later I met Barak Olins at ZU Bakery, in the West End. We sat down on a bench to chat, and I found myself thinking, This would never happen in New York—sitting in the sun talking to a 2024 James Beard Award winner, who just spent the day on his feet doing something he loves. Olins moved to from St. Louis to Maine after college 35 years ago to build boats, but then opened a small restaurant and fell in love with making bread. Despite the attention last year’s award delivered, his mission remains unchanged: a neighborhood bakery where people can buy a croissant and eat it while it’s still fresh and warm. 

My last meal in Portland was at Sur Lie, a tapas-centric restaurant in a brick building in the city’s downtown, owned and operated by James Beard Award–nominated restaurateur Krista Cole. My pan-seared Maine sea scallops, followed by spaetzle with lamb ragù, put me in a gratified daze. In my notebook, I wrote, “THIS IS THE BEST THING I’VE EVER EATEN.” And at that moment—until my next meal in Portland—it was the truth. 

A version of this story first appeared in the September 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “Fresh Catch.”