All Restaurants in Portland, Maine
Get the complete city dining guide.
New openings, reservation tips, and editor picks — updated quarterly. Free to join.
$ under $40 · $$ $40–$80 · $$$ $80–$150 · $$$$ $150+ per person
Portland, Maine
Twelve
The room that makes Portland's dining scene impossible to dismiss — alumni of Eleven Madison Park, serving the New England coastline like it deserves.
Portland, Maine
Leeward
James Beard-nominated Italian in a former menswear store — where handmade pasta and conviction make downtown Portland feel like Milan's smartest trattoria.
Portland, Maine
Fore Street
Portland's founding cathedral of farm-to-table — the wood-burning hearth has been setting the standard for New England hospitality since 1996.
Portland, Maine
Central Provisions
Portland's most versatile serious restaurant — James Beard-nominated, perpetually packed, and capable of making any meal feel like a discovery.
Portland, Maine
Eventide Oyster Co.
The brown butter lobster roll that made Portland famous — a shrine to Maine's waters, where briny perfection is a liturgy practised daily.
Portland, Maine
Scales
The table on the wharf where lobstermen dock their boats — Portland's most theatrical seafood experience, harbour views and all.
Portland, Maine
Street & Co.
Portland's most seductive dining room — a cobblestone-alley setting that makes Mediterranean seafood feel like an Old Port romance.
Portland, Maine
The Honey Paw
Maine ingredients filtered through Bangkok, Saigon, and Rangoon — the noodle bar that proves Portland's ambition extends far beyond the lobster roll.
Portland, Maine
Oun Lido's
Esquire's best new restaurant in America lands in a 30-seat room in the Old Port — the most exciting cooking in Portland, dollar for dollar.
Portland, Maine
Solo Italiano
Chef Paolo Laboa brings Ligurian technique to Portland's waterfront — precise, soulful Italian cooking that earns serious business over a bottle of Barolo.
Portland, Maine
Tipo
Monument Square's convivial Italian — wood-fired pizzas and house pasta that make celebration effortless in the heart of the city.
Portland, Maine
Boone's Fish House & Oyster Room
A Portland institution since 1898 — two decks over the water, baked stuffed lobster, and the kind of waterfront energy that turns colleagues into friends.
Portland, Maine
DiMillo's on the Water
Portland's floating landmark — dining on a former car ferry with harbour panoramas that make any birthday feel like an adventure.
Portland, Maine
Piccolo
Tiny, precious, and utterly disarming — Portland's most intimate Italian room, where a proposal over handmade pasta needs no further decoration.
Portland, Maine
Sur Lie
Portland's best counter seat — a natural wine bar in Longfellow Square where solo dining is treated as the luxury it genuinely is.
Portland, Maine
Boda
Portland's neighbourhood Thai institution on Congress Street — a late-night haven of sharing plates and Singha that makes group dining feel effortless.
Portland, Maine
Duckfat
The cult sandwich-and-frite shop that locals consider a civic institution — duck fat fries, panini, and the quiet confidence of something done perfectly.
Portland, Maine
Regards
The Arts District's warmest room — a marble bar, thoughtful cocktails, and a menu that has range: equally at home for a margarita at happy hour or a serious dinner.
Portland, Maine
Petite Jacqueline
Portland's Left Bank — a genuine French bistro on Congress Street where steak-frites and a carafe of Beaujolais never go out of style.
Portland, Maine
Luke's Lobster
Straight off the boat, straight onto the roll — the dock-to-shack lobster experience that proves the best things in Portland require no pretence whatsoever.
Best for First Date in Portland, Maine
Portland, Maine
Leeward
Handmade pastas in a converted department store — romantic without theatrics, impressive without intimidation.
Portland, Maine
Street & Co.
A candlelit cobblestone alley setting that does all the hard work — the food just needs to show up, and it consistently does.
Portland, Maine
Oun Lido's
The date restaurant for people who want to talk about something more interesting than their food — and then end up talking about it anyway.
Best for Business Dinner in Portland, Maine
Portland, Maine
Twelve
Book the chef's counter and the deal is half-closed before the first course arrives — Eleven Madison Park pedigree on the Portland waterfront.
Portland, Maine
Central Provisions
Portland's power-lunch counter — small plates that open wallets and conversations with equal efficiency.
Portland, Maine
Solo Italiano
Michelin-calibre Italian technique meets Maine seafood — a serious dinner for serious conversations, conducted over Barolo.
Top 10 Restaurants in Portland, Maine
Twelve
Chef Colin Wyatt's waterfront restaurant is the most significant dining room in Maine and one of the most significant in New England. Wyatt led the kitchen at Eleven Madison Park — the world's No. 1 restaurant in 2017 — before returning to his home state to open this. Set inside the historic Portland Company complex, Twelve offers both a prix-fixe menu and a la carte, built entirely on hyper-local sourcing. The seven-seat chef's counter is Portland's most coveted reservation. The New York Times named it one of America's top 50 restaurants.
Leeward
Housed in a former men's department store on Free Street, Leeward is the Italian restaurant Portland needed and didn't know it could have. Every element is made in-house — the focaccia, the carta di musica, the chicken liver mousse, the gnudi, the bolognese. The James Beard nomination was richly deserved. The dining room has the proportions of a European brasserie but the intimacy of a neighbourhood trattoria. This is a restaurant for lingering.
Fore Street
Sam Hayward's Fore Street is the restaurant that put Portland on the American culinary map and it has never stopped earning its reputation. The wood-burning hearth — an open oven, grill, and turnspit — is both the kitchen's soul and the dining room's centrepiece. Farm-sourced, seasonal, locally obsessive: this was farm-to-table before the phrase existed. If you only eat at one Portland restaurant, and you want to understand why this city became food-famous, this is it.
Central Provisions
Chris Gould's Old Port restaurant has been Portland's most consistent benchmark of excellence for over a decade. The format — international small plates with seasonal Maine ingredients, pre-Prohibition cocktails, a wine list with range — sounds familiar now but was prescient in 2014. The corner brick building feels like the exact right room for it. Central Provisions is the kind of restaurant you find yourself recommending to everyone who visits.
Eventide Oyster Co.
The brown butter lobster roll that became a national obsession. Andrew Taylor and Mike Wiley's oyster bar in the Old Port redefined what Maine seafood could look and taste like — pristine, precise, and deeply respectful of its source. The raw bar alone, featuring local oysters from across the Gulf of Maine, is worth the trip. The queue is real; the reward is genuine. No other restaurant captures what makes Portland special in quite such a direct way.
Scales
From the team behind Fore Street, Scales sits at the end of a working wharf in the centre of the Old Port, with lobster boats docking directly outside. The setting alone is extraordinary — harbour views from every table, the sounds and smells of a working waterfront just beyond the glass. The menu is a celebration of Maine's waters: lobster, raw bar, land plates that change seasonally. The room is more dramatic than any dinner theatre.
Street & Co.
Dana Street's flagship predates Fore Street and remains Portland's most romantic dining room. The setting — down a cobblestone alley in the Old Port, brick walls, candlelight, open kitchen — is perfect for occasions that require atmosphere to do heavy lifting. The Mediterranean-influenced seafood menu is classically executed: fish straight from the Gulf of Maine treated with European technique. Mussels diavolo, sole meunière, whole roasted fish — these dishes do not need reinvention.
Oun Lido's
Chefs Bounahcree Kim and Vien Dobui opened a Cambodian-Cantonese takeout counter in the Old Port in May 2024 that Esquire promptly named one of the best new restaurants in America. The 30-seat room now runs weekend table service on top of its counter operation. Lemongrass beef skewers, twice-fried lemon chicken, fresh rolls, noodle stir-fries — dishes built on Khmer and Cantonese tradition using Maine ingredients. The best value meal in Portland, categorically.
Solo Italiano
Chef Paolo Laboa's waterfront Italian restaurant brought Ligurian rigour to Portland's Commercial Street and hasn't looked back. The pasta is made in-house, the wine list is Italo-centric and genuinely considered, and the service is warm without being effusive. This is the restaurant Portland's business community uses for the dinners that matter — a guest who books Solo Italiano is signalling taste and seriousness in equal measure.
The Honey Paw
Taylor and Wiley's noodle bar next to Eventide began as a globally inspired concept and has evolved into a focused exploration of Southeast Asian cuisines — Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Singapore — interpreted through Maine's larder. The ramen, the rice bowls, the fish sauce-laced vegetables: this is food that could exist nowhere else. Bon Appétit named it one of America's Hot 10 restaurants. The communal large table makes it the city's best team dinner venue under $60 per head.
The Kings Guide to Dining in Portland, Maine
Essential Intelligence — New England's Most Exciting Food City
The Dining Culture
Portland punches harder than any city its size in America. With barely 70,000 residents, it has produced a dining scene that the New York Times, Bon Appétit, Esquire, and the James Beard Foundation have all recognised repeatedly. The reasons are structural: extreme local sourcing from one of the world's great fishing grounds and an inland agricultural system that produces exceptional ingredients; a low cost of entry that attracts ambitious chefs who cannot yet afford Boston or New York; and a local population that takes its restaurants seriously and eats out constantly.
The culture is unpretentious but not casual. Portland restaurants execute serious cooking without requiring formal attire or theatrical service. Dress smartly for Twelve or Leeward; everywhere else, smart-casual is the appropriate register. The city's dining identity is built on specificity — Maine scallops, Pemaquid oysters, Stonington lobster, local mushrooms — and the best restaurants are those that amplify rather than mask their provenance.
Neighbourhoods to Know
The Old Port is the engine room: a compact grid of cobblestone streets between Fore Street and the harbour, containing most of Portland's landmark restaurants including Eventide, Central Provisions, Street & Co., and The Honey Paw. Walking between them takes ten minutes. This is where first-time visitors should concentrate their dining.
The waterfront — Commercial Street and the wharves — is Portland's most scenic dining territory. Scales, Boone's, DiMillo's, and Solo Italiano all occupy working-waterfront positions where lobster boats and fishing vessels share the view. The Portland Company complex on Thames Street, where Twelve is located, is the city's most prestigious dining address.
The Arts District, centred on Congress Street, is where Portland's neighbourhood restaurants live: Petite Jacqueline, Sur Lie, Regards, Tipo, and Boda. These are the restaurants Portlanders eat at on a Tuesday, and they are uniformly excellent.
Reservations & Access
Twelve is Portland's hardest reservation: book through Resy as far in advance as the platform allows, which is typically 30 days. The chef's counter releases on a rolling basis and disappears within minutes. Leeward, Fore Street, and Street & Co. book up weeks in advance for weekends. Central Provisions and Scales take reservations on OpenTable but also keep walk-in bar seats — arrive at 5:30pm for the best chance without a reservation.
Eventide does not take reservations and operates first-come, first-served. The queue forms by 11am on weekends. The Honey Paw is similarly walk-in only. Both are worth any wait Portland's mild summers produce.
Portland's dining season peaks from May through October, when the population swells with tourists and summer residents. January through March is the city's quiet season — restaurants are emptier and some close for weeks at a time, but the locals' tables are yours.
Dress Code & Etiquette
Portland is a New England city: the bar is smart-casual at nearly all restaurants and genuinely casual at the oyster bars and lobster shacks. Twelve is Portland's most formal room by some distance — a jacket is not required but would not look out of place. Leeward and Fore Street are business-casual. Every other restaurant on this list: wear what you would to a nice dinner in a city where no one is looking at your shoes.
Tipping at 20% is standard and expected. Many restaurants have moved to a service-inclusive model in recent years — Twelve and several others include gratuity — so read the bill before adding more. Portland's restaurant workers are among the most dedicated in the industry and the hospitality deserves to be rewarded accordingly.
Maine does not have the same alcohol culture as larger American cities. The cocktail scene is genuinely good at Sur Lie and Regards; wine programmes at Leeward and Twelve are serious; the craft beer culture is excellent throughout. Do not look for bottle service or nightclub energy — Portland's dining rooms close early and run deep on quality, not volume.