Favorites List: Where America's Best Chefs Shop for Seafood
You too can buy great fish and seafood at Browne Trading Company in Portland, Maine.
Welcome to the weekend! Here’s what you’ll find in today’s newsletter.
Favorites List: Portland, Maine’s Browne Trading Company is the seafood purveyor of choice for many top restaurants — and you can shop there, too.
The Order: Try an epic build-your-own breakfast plate in Lexington, Kentucky.
Weekend Reading: A Georgia getaway, a new trend in destination weddings, and an airline industry shakeup.
Featured Destination: Paid American Weekender subscribers can download our Field Guide to the Hudson Valley, a 24-page digital dining guide formatted for your phone.
In Portland, Finding One of America’s Top Fishmongers
PORTLAND, MAINE — Last week, we published our Known Traveler interview with Eric Ripert, chef and co-owner of New York’s Le Bernardin. During our chat, we were talking about Portland, Maine, and Ripert told me I had to go seek out Rod Mitchell’s Browne Trading Company, where he procures a lot of the seafood for the restaurant.
“We get skate, monk, striped bass, black bass, crab, lobster, oysters, whitebait when it's the season, tuna, mussels,” Ripert says. “We’re getting a lot from him.”
Well, when Eric Ripert tells you to go somewhere, you go.
Browne Trading Company, which Mitchell established in 1991, sources high quality seafood for chefs like Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller, Sean Brock (who serves Maine uni at his lovely Nashville tasting menu restaurant, June), and Rachel Miller of Lynn, Massachusetts’ Nightshade Noodle Bar, as well as many Maine chefs, including Neil Zabriskie of Regards, Chris Gould of Central Provisions, and Sara Jenkins of Nina June.
“Rod knows quality and he has very good connections with the fishermen,” Ripert says. “He pays a high price because he knows he has good clients who will pay a high price for quality. Over the years he has learned how to handle the fish properly and pack the fish properly. When you receive it to your door, it’s pristine.”
When we arrived in Portland, we headed to the market, where we found shelves lined with tinned seafood, wines, and gourmet products to enhance a seafood spread. The iced cases held Gulf of Maine little neck clams, whole red snappers, and bags of Bangs Island Mussels. I was perusing the tinned fish wall to find some to take home (it’s one of my favorite souvenirs), and George Faison, a Browne employee, came over to help me pick some out. After directing me to tins of Portuguese stuffed squids in Mediterranean sauce and tuna filet with Azorean pepper, he asked how we found them. When I said that Ripert told us we had to come, he gave us a tasting tour through their caviar offerings (and he said that anyone coming in could get the tour too, so just ask!).
Browne Trading has an exceptionally good caviar program, and Mitchell sources from all over the world. At the store, Faison walked us through a number of his favorite caviars, from buttery Snake River Royal White Sturgeon Caviar from Idaho to nutty Galilee Royal Osetra Caviar from Israel, talking through the wide variety of textures, colors, and tastes that different caviars have. It was an eye-opening tour, since I have never had a chance to try so many caviars side by side before. During the course of our stay in Portland, we sampled even more Browne Trading products.
We tried a delicious Jonah crab dish at Twelve, where we had the four-course prix fixe menu (we wrote about the restaurant earlier this year after our first visit). The dish features sweet crab from Browne wrapped in daikon and set over a pool of ajo blanco. One morning, we had a great breakfast at Ugly Duckling, where the salmon sammy was made with Browne smoked salmon, caper cream cheese, Brussels sprout and kelp slaw, and pickled red onion on a rye-caraway English muffin. The chefs at Ugly Duckling, Ilma Lopez and Damian Sansonetti, also run Chaval, where they use Browne seafood in dishes like Bangs Island mussels escabeche with harissa, radicchio, and piparra peppers, and deviled eggs topped with wild Alaskan salmon roe.
Lest you think that you can’t experience Browne’s seafood without a trip to Maine or dining at a restaurant, “he also sells to consumers,” Ripert says. “They ship all over the country. You specify how you want it, whole or filet, and you’re going to get a box to your door.”
You can order from Browne Trading Company online here.
262 Commercial St, Portland, ME 04101
LEXINGTON, KY — One of our more memorable recent breakfasts on the road was at Stella’s Kentucky Deli, which is located in a cozy yellow house in downtown Lexington. The daytime spot serves hot browns (and vegetarian hot browns with roasted veggies) and sandwiches for lunch. There’s a tight menu for breakfast, with a couple burritos, plus Benedict and pancake specials on the weekends. But there is also the greatest mix-and-match breakfast plate I’ve ever seen.
For $10.95 you can pick three items, or for $12.95 you get four (anything extra is $4.25), and the offerings are fantastic. There’s a grilled slice of hickory-smoked Kentucky ham. There are biscuits (you get two!) with either butter and jam or chipotle gravy. There are local eggs cooked any way, local sausage, and local grits. There are hashbrowns, but also a house salad or fruit (for health). I showed restraint and went with five items, building my plate with two eggs over easy, two biscuits with butter and raspberry jam, grits, fruit, and that Kentucky ham. I can’t believe I did not try the intriguing tomato bisque with artichoke hearts, but I’ll save that one for the next time I’m in town.
143 Jefferson St, Lexington, KY 40508
Georgia On My Mind: Writing for Travel + Leisure, Gisela Williams visits some of Georgia’s barrier islands, including Cumberland, Sapelo, Sea Island, and Little St. Simons. Her trip included lazy days reading and playing chess, a visit to an historic hotel, and taking in the islands’ stunning natural beauty.
A Remote-Work Wedding? To be sure, the increasing number of Americans working remotely has given many folks more flexibility to travel. And it turns out that flexibility doesn’t just mean more time for family vacations. “Wedding guests who are lucky enough to have those hybrid schedules are increasingly using them to spend a few more days wherever the celebration takes them,” writes Julie Weed in The New York Times. For guests, it has meant more time with friends and for hotels it has meant more mid-week check-ins. Grows the economy. Hurts nobody. Sounds like a good idea to me.
In Air Travel News:
offers some insight into the recent announcement by Alaska Airlines that it would acquire Hawaiian Airlines in a $1.9 billion deal. Writing for his Substack newsletter, , Sumers notes that Alaska plans to keep operating Hawaiian Airlines as a separate brand, something that has been unheard of in previous airline tie-ups. “Maybe Alaska learned something from the Virgin America purchase,” he writes, “when some Virgin loyalists defected to competitors rather than switch to Alaska.” I’m glad to see that Hawaiian Airlines’ nearly century-old brand will survive. We’ll see how the rest of the deal shakes out.— Compiled by Kenney Marlatt
This month, paid subscribers to American Weekender received our newsletter featuring some of our favorite spots in New York’s Hudson Valley. You can download all of our picks for the area in our Field Guide to the Hudson Valley, a 24-page digital dining guide formatted for your phone. During the month of December, paid subscribers can snag a complimentary download on our website using the code found in this month’s Featured Destination newsletter. (Paid subscribers also get 50% off any other Field Guide they’d like!) Upgrade your subscription today and get your free Field Guide to the Hudson Valley.
Want more? Download our Field Guides, check out our archives, or follow us on Instagram @americanweekender. We’ll be back next week.
