With peak lobster season beginning as early as April, menus across the country will soon be crawling with the spiny crustacean. Most restaurants will serve it in traditional forms, such as steamed with drawn butter, in creamy bisque, or diced and smothered in mayonnaise on a bun. But a number of chefs are reimagining lobster, creating innovative dishes that play on its unique texture and extreme adaptability.
“The versatility of lobster makes for a fun thing for chefs to use,” said Bob Levitt, co-owner of Lobster Joint in Brooklyn, N.Y. “People just love it.”
The menu at Lobster Joint, which has a brick-and-mortar location in the Brooklyn neighborhood Greenpoint, a seasonal kiosk in Rockaway Beach in Queens, N.Y., and a soon-to-be-launched food truck, is packed with traditional and non-traditional lobster dishes. Among the most popular creations is the Lobster Shepherd’s Pie, made with lobster chunks, mashed potatoes, spinach and mushrooms, and served in a cast iron skillet. A number of inventive specials have been a hit as well, such as a lobster Benedict and lobster empanadas. Levitt is also working on additional innovative lobster items, including lobster claws wrapped in bacon.
At Firefly in Studio City, Calif., executive chef Paul Shoemaker deconstructs a number of classic dishes and reassembles them, with lobster as a main ingredient. For his Butter Poached Maine Lobster, a riff on the classic eggs Benedict, Shoemaker starts with a lobster tail cooked sous-vide with French butter and then places it on a slice of brioche-type bread with a slow poached egg, asparagus, béarnaise sauce and American caviar.
“People love it,” Shoemaker said. “It’s such a beautiful thing to have an egg, lobster and caviar in the morning.”
Among Shoemaker’s other reinventions is Maine Lobster Bolognese, which has diced lobster atop a haystack of housemade linguini and coral butter. Last summer he offered a Lobster Bloody Mary, using the elements of the classic brunch beverage in a cold consommé with chilled lobster, crème fraîche, Bloody Mary sorbet and caviar, which he is considering bringing back this spring.
Also playing with chilled lobster is Jaysen Euler, corporate executive chef of the rustic Italian restaurant Davanti Enoteca in Chicago. Drawing inspiration from the traditional Italian dish, Euler’s Lobster Fra Diavolo features Maine lobster served in a marinade of Meyer lemon and olive oil, with fresh celery and Serrano chile and finished with tomatoes.
“I love the delicateness of lightly poached lobster,” Euler said. “I think it’s such a refreshing way to begin a meal.”
Similarly, chef and partner Dave Pasternack and chef de cuisine and partner Christian Goerner of Barchetta in New York City recently added to their menu a Spiny Lobster Crudo, made with raw lobster dressed with olive oil, sliced green almonds and lemon.
Breaking with tradition, View in Oakdale, N.Y., a seafood house overlooking Great South Bay, offers lobster not on a roll, but in a wrap. The Montauk Lobster Wrap features lobster, applewood smoked bacon, tomatoes and Meyer lemon vinaigrette wrapped up in a garlic-and-herb tortilla.
To create a singular lobster mashup, executive chef Michael Hung of Faith & Flower in downtown Los Angeles married two seafood traditions. The result is the Wood Oven Roasted Maine Lobster Stuffed with Clams Casino, a whole butterflied lobster stuffed with littleneck clams, chorizo, green garlic and breadcrumbs, and served with coriander- and anise-infused drawn butter and lemon.
“One of my great food memories growing up on the East Coast was sitting at a seaside restaurant on the Jersey shore and eating broiled lobster with drawn butter and clams casino,” Hung said. “I have an incredible wood oven, so I thought I'd mash up the two.”