Crackin’ GET Lobster’s no longer solely a luxury meal
In the not-so-distant past, lobsters were mostly the domain of fancy pants restaurants and the well-to-do diners who ate there. These days, it’s a much different story.
From lobster hash at Nellcote and lobster eggs Benedict at SushiSamba Rio to lobster pizza at Stout Barrel House & Galley, the king of the crustacean family has outgrown its special-occasion-only status. Need more proof ? Quick-service chain Au Bon Pain has recently featured a lobster salad BLT on its menu.
Part of this lobster love can be attributed to slightly lower prices. (Note: To get in on those record-low prices reported recently in the news, you’d have to head to Maine, where a mild winter has created a glut in the lobster population, in particular soft-shelled ones, which, unfortunately for us, are too delicate for transportation.)
Price was part of lure for chef Chris Curren of Stout Barrel House (642 N. Clark) to create a Maine lobster week at the River North restaurant in August in which he featured a different dish each night. “It has dropped slightly, but for me it was the fact that lobster prices haven’t gone up like other items that was the incentive,” he says.
For the event, Curren created new dishes, including lobster pot pie and lobster bake with mussels, chorizo and potatoes. He also offered menu favorites, like his mini lobster rolls and his once-a-week special lobster
Food Editor: Sue Ontiveros pizza. “There are a lot of instances where mixing cheese with seafood is a big mistake, but this one actually works,” says Curren. “The great thing about lobster is that it will hold its own to a lot of flavor profiles.”
At SushaSamba (504 N. Wells), chef Lee Guidry has been experimenting with raw lobster in sashimi and nigiri dishes. “I poached just the outside so it’s still raw in the middle,” he says of the special. “Because of the pricing, we can actually play around with lobster.”
Presenting luxury ingredients in an approachable way is part of the overall concept at Nellcote (833
| E-mail: W. Randolph), says chef Jared Van Camp. And lobster, which is featured in two dishes, fits right into that.
For strozzapreti on the dinner menu, Van Camp prepares a squid ink pasta in house and serves it chilled with Maine lobster, Fresno chiles, mint and pine nut pesto. At brunch, the crustacean is featured in one of the restaurant’s top-selling dishes: lobster hash. While the drop in lobster prices came into play for using the ingredient, says Van Camp — the restaurant did, in fact, drop the price of the hash dish by $1 to reflect the change in their purchasing cost — there’s more to it than that.
| Twitter: @sueontiveros “When you put the word ‘lobster’ on something, people will buy it,” he says.
That’s something chef Roger Herring of Socca (3301 N. Clark) experienced at one of his monthly “Last Tuesday” special in July, which featured a $10 lobster dinner. While Herring did a similar event last year, this time around the demand was so high he added a second night. It didn’t hurt that his lobsters, which he gets through a friend’s family in Maine, dropped a few dollars in price per pound. Another incentive?