Eventide Oyster Company, Portland, Maine

Eventide Oyster Company was one  of those restaurants that came up in my search for “best restaurant in Portland, Maine” over and over again. So based on that consistency I added Eventide Oyster Company to my list of places to try in Portland.

Step 1 – Get a table

Does Eventide Oyster Company take reservations? Unfortunately, no… only if you have a larger party of 6 or more. So for the four of us we put our name in (after waiting on 20 minute line first) around 4:30 on a Saturday. As I waited in line to just find out how long we will ultimately have to wait, multiple people leaving the restaurant told me how it was worth any wait to eat there. When I finally got to the front of the line I was told then wait would be approximately 2 hours. Luckily they use software called TableUp to update you on your space in line. This allowed us to walk around for 2 hours instead of standing around the restaurant with 2 hyper kids. Eventide Oyster Co. did also offer standing service where waitstaff would take your order at the bar or another standing area and serve you food and drinks. That was not idea for us so it was worth the wait for us, since we had a 2 and 6 year old with us.

Step 2 – Straight to the drink menu

Leave it to my husband to find a drink that has a disclaimer of “humans are limited to 2 per visit”. I won’t use this blog to explain the aftermath of taking advantage of that limit two. As I am sitting here writing this I asked him if he liked it, and he replied with “yeah, it was pretty good”. I am fairly positive he doesn’t really remember.

For myself I ordered a twisted tea, which was an alcoholic Arnold Palmer. It came in a cute little bottle to pour into a glass. These were also strong but didn’t have the same disclaimer as the drink mentioned above. It was yummy!

Step 3 – Order all the food

Now I never know if this is a problem, or a blessing… Restaurants where there are so many amazing things on the menu and specials we struggle with what to order. So one solution to this “problem” is to order a little bit of everything and share it all. And this is what we did when we ate at Eventide Oyster Company. Our girls ate a big late lunch this day which was our plan to make it easier to not worry about them getting a full dinner. They mostly just tried some stuff we ordered but they were also saving up for some promised ice cream after 😉

Now obviously, based on their name, Eventide Oyster Company is known for their oysters. The coolest part about that is they have a huge variety of oysters from Maine and elsewhere as well.

To be honest, I usually don’t love oysters. I’ve tried them on many occasions but typically just skip over them on menus. My husband on the other hand loves them. However, he knows nothing about all the varieties and locations they had the oysters from here. So he asked the waitress to just choose the best 6 for us to try.

It’s official, my mind is now changed – these oysters were out of this world! I absolutely loved them but now am worried I’ll never find them as good elsewhere. They were so fresh and were bursting with flavor. As much as I would have loved to order six more I was happy we didn’t because we had a few other courses on the way. Only a few of the things we ordered were from the regular menu, the rest were off the daily features.

This lobster roll doesn’t look like your typical lobster roll. The soft roll was stuffed full of lobster coated in brown butter. My only complaint was it wasn’t very big!

Step 4 – Figure out when you will come back

One of my favorite things about ordering a bunch of plates to share is forgetting what you ordered and being surprised all over. The portions were not too big and the plates came out at a steady pace at Eventide Oyster Company. This was one of many road trips this summer and I think this was our favorite restaurant we went to of the summer. Now I am trying to figure out when we can get back to Maine to come back to Eventide Oyster Company again!

I did notice on their website that they will have a Boston, MA location coming in Fall 2017. Looks like it will be a counter service restaurant! Might be a good excuse to visit Boston again soon 😉