Union River Lobster Pot - Ellsworth, Maine

We went to Maine to visit Acadia National Park, but mainly, it was to eat lobster, lots of lobster. Boiled lobster. Lobster rolls. Lobster everything.

Ellsworth, a sleepy town near the coast, was just a stopover--a cheaper place to stay than Bar Harbor, which is the more touristy city closest to Acadia.

That first night, settling into our hotel room, tired from the long drive from Boston Logan, we decided to find something to eat not too far away. We still wanted our first meal in Maine to be lobster, but we weren't going to be picky on the place. If it was around the corner, even better.

We saw Union River Lobster Pot on Yelp. The pictures looked good enough. Most important, it was just a few blocks away--a local place. But what it ended up being was one of the best restaurant experiences of our entire trip.


First, that name isn't just a name. This seafood shack, with its outdoor cooking pots billowing steam, is located on the banks of the Union River. And the table we got, next to a window that's actually just a mesh screen, gave us a view of not just the garden but the river itself, a meandering creek shaded by trees--a scene idyllic enough for a Thomas Kinkade painting.

And our meal, called "The Downeast Shore Dinner"--consisting of a 1 1/4 boiled lobster with clam chowder, steamers, mussels, hot drawn butter, clam jus, French fries, coleslaw, and a loaf of homemade bread--cost us a little less than $30. This was an incredible price for a lot of food that we wouldn't see repeated again in any of the more tourist-trappy seafood restaurants in Bar Harbor.

We also discovered that the Union River Lobster Pot featured a lobster stew that tasted like nothing we've eaten before. The soup was thin rather than thick. And because it was, we could appreciate the flavor of the lobster meat itself, of which the soup had in abundance.

I still dream about that stew. Since returning home, I've been searching the Internet in vain for a recipe. If you know how to make this nectar of the shellfish gods, please drop me a comment.

But if you are, yourself, considering a trip to Maine to see Acadia and eat lobster, you need to go to Union River Lobster Pot. Do it before the likes of Andrew Zimmern and Anthony Bourdain discovers it and tells the whole damn world.

Union River Lobster Pot
8 South St
Ellsworth, ME 04605
(844) 247-2407
lobsterpot.com

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