Calling all Maine foodies for the Harvest on the Harbor
Fall in Portland Maine is a great time to check out new restaurants. The crunch of crisp fall leaves under your feet on the Old Port’s cobblestone streets as you search out delicious new food offerings in Portland’s best restaurants. Portland has become quite a hub for top chefs, definitely the epicenter of the Maine cuisine scene, with Kennebunkport, Camden, Ogunquit, York and Kittery raising the bar in Maine with great dining spots.
A highlight to fall in Portland is the Harvest on the Harbor, an annual event of toasting Maine’s best culinary chefs, and flaunting the best Maine beers, wines and food.
Every year, Portland‘s Harvest on the Harbor benefits local charities, food banks and provides scholarships, so it’s an eat well, feel good deal. The mission of Harvest on the Harbor is “to promote Maine as a top culinary tourism destination to food-savvy travelers from Maine and around the world, and extend the traditional tourism season while increasing the economic impact for Maine businesses.” Sounds brilliant right, we can all raise a glass and a fork to that!
Harvest on the Harbor takes place Oct 18-21, and the signature event is Market on the Harbor, the Grand Finale where guests have an opportunity to taste dishes from Maine’s best restaurants and meet the chef owners while sampling and sipping local Maine beers, wines and spirits with each chef creation. Eat, Sip and shop at Portland Yacht Services. Other fun foodie events include the Pig Roast and Bloody Mary Brunch and Maine Oyster Fest on Saturday.
The Harvest of the Harbor venue is a big top tent at Portland Yacht Services, overlooking Portland harbor and the passing ships, ferries, even a view of Bug Light!
Another big draw is the Maine Lobster Chef of the Year Competition since every Maine chef worth his or her salt wants to prepare the best lobster dish, especially in front of their peers! 2018 Avery Richter, executive chef of The Black Tie Co. won Lobster Chef of the year with her Maine Lobster seaweed salad cone!
Previous years’ Lobster Dinner Winners:
2017 Boothbay Harbor Country Club executive sous chef Nathaniel Adam was Maine Lobster Chef of the Year for his Lobster in Foliage creation.
2016 Union Chef Josh Berry won Maine Chef – Union is in the Press Hotel in Portland.
2015 Nonantum Resort of Kennebunkport won Maine Chef .
2014 Chef Stephen Richards -The World is Mine Oyster Boothbay Harbor was top Lobster Chef.
2013 Chef Chris Long, Natalie’s at the Camden Harbour Inn won last, beating out his boss.
2012 Kerry Altiero from Café Miranda with esteemed lobster award.
Many of the Grand Tasting and Entertainment events sell out before the festival even starts. If you don’t get ticket to Harvest on the Harbor, then go enjoy dinner out at one of Portland’s amazing restaurants.
Maine top chefs participating in the Harvest on the Harbor Top Maine Lobster Chef Competitors are:
Bite Into Maine
Congress Squared
DiMillo’s on the Water
Fisherman’s Wharf Inn
Portland Lobster Company
RiRa Portland
Seadog Brewing Company
Union Kitchen
2018 Boothbay Harbor Claw Down Winner Dana Moos
Plan you Maine foodie vacation and come to the coast to sample lobster, walk the beach and enjoy “the way life should be.”
See our Maine Lodging Guide and the Maine’s Top Restaurants
Copyright 2018 VisitMaine.net
Here are some of Portland Maine’s best Happy Hours:
Porthole – also right on the water – is casual but fun for Happy Hour deals Monday- Friday 3-6, and Saturday –Sunday 1-4.
Boone’s Fish House & Oyster Room on the waterfront has 4-6pm daily happy hour with
Oyster specials, $5 cocktails, $3 house wine, $2 beers and $5 food items like wings, nachos, Brussels sprouts and calamari.
Brian Boru – the Irish Pub has 4-7 Happy Hour Monday – Friday with $4 well drinks, house wine and Geary’s Pale Ale drafts.
Sur Lie has Happy Hour 4-6pm with $2 off drafts, $7 wines, and culinary $5 apps.
Dock Fore isn’t fancy but it gets happy every day from 3 -7pm, draft beers $2, wine are $1 off, free appetizer display.
Petite Jacqueline hosts
”apero” happy hour 5-6:30pm Monday-Friday at the bar and patio, with
$5 aperitifs, $4 draft beers, and $3 wine, plus $1.50 oysters, $5 small plates and $46 crepes. Mais oui!
Apples
Broccoli is abundant in Maine. Despite Kennebunkport’s favorite former-president’s disdain for the bright green veggie (President George H W Bush said he hates broccoli), Maine is a top producer of this cruciferous green vegetable in “The County” – with 6,500 acres in Aroostook county. Broccoli is a powerful antioxidant with numerous health benefits, a big source of vitamins K and C, folate (folic acid), also high in potassium and fiber. Besides, its fun to dip broccoli in ranch or cheese – and pretend their little trees and you’re the Jolly Green Giant.
Maine’s Aroostook county has potatoes aplenty. Maine is a top producer of spuds, not as much as Idaho, but still – over 70,000 acres of land in northern Maine is proliferated with potato farms. 25 percent of Maine’s potato production supplies the East coast, 45 percent is used for frozen French fries- like McCain, 20 percent for (my personal favorite) potato chips – Humpty Dumpty, Frito-Lays, Utz, and 10 percent go to fresh market for Maine’s best restaurants and local consumption. Maine Potato Blossom Festival in Fort Fairfield in July is a 70+ year tradition to celebrate the spud! The Maine Potato Board, yes that’s a thing, has pages of potato recipes from mashed to home fries to Shepard’s pie! Oh, and Cold River Vodka is made from Maine potatoes- gluten free!
More on 
2. Discover the simple pleasure of a bike ride down an old dirt road with the crisp autumn leaves crunching under your bicycle tires.
3. Get out on the water, with a 
4. Keep off the grass, but enjoy a nature walk, Maine is resplendent with state parks, reserve and conservation trust land that is open to the public for the perfect fall foliage walk. Remember, take only pictures, leave only your footprints! 
5. Enjoy the last 
7. Shop for Maine made products and crafts at the many
8. Reserve a room at a romantic bed and breakfast or 
10. Just enjoy the subtle serene surroundings of fall in Maine, you’ll be glad you came. 
See our 
The outfits: Tourists typically wear flashy, not so matchy clothes – as if they packed in a rush, eager to hit the road and start their trip to Maine. bright beachy colored T-shirts with anything Maine placarded on themselves are a super sleuth clue. Socks with sandals, cruise ship sea pass lanyards around their necks, and swimsuits in town and restaurants are also notable get-noticed tourist getups.
The walking red – sunburns are a “shore” sign of those from away. The cooked lobster look is like nature’s tattoo of a happy summer day at the beach or our on a boat, without proper SPF precautions. Nothing like a bright red sunburn to bring back to the office on Monday to show you were at the beach… but didn’t apply sunscreen cause you thought Maine was too far north for UVA UVB rays. Rookie move – but way to rock your 
In Maine restaurants
Waiting in line for clams, lobster rolls, or ice cream…. that’s a tourist move. Mainers wait for no one and just don’t do the queue … after all you can walk right into those same businesses in spring, winter or fall without delay. And ice cream is still refreshing on below zero days. So if you see a line, that’s a sign that it’s a popular tourist spot – 
The slow driver gawker stalkers…. If you drive out to 
One exception to tourist spotting versus locals is 
when I say it at Mahden’s.”
picnicking or bike tours in the Fort Williams park area. Here, you can take a walk around the large park estate and visit the Portland Headlight as well. Alternatively, you could visit the park on Munjoy Hill where you have your walking area along the Eastern Promenade. Nearby, you could visit the Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum which has affordable ticket rates.
Walking the Old Port and Art District areas in Portland is popular. 
What sets 
Pot friendly Potland… South Portland Maine voted to be pot friendly. In the 2014 election, South Portland approved a citizen-initiated referendum declaring it legal for adults over 21 years old to possess small amounts of marijuana for private, recreational use. In 2016, Maine medicinal marijuana is legalized, but leaves the jurisdiction, distribution and ordinances to the local level. What does this mean for Maine tourism? Can you toke on 
federal law, and local police say enforcement won’t change. But Maine’s marijuana friendly initiative provides leniency in Portland for recreational pot use in private. It also serve as an intro to a future state change, and indicates Maine citizen’s appetite for a more liberal view of cannabis consumption.
Imagine the pot possibilities in Maine, a state already high on taxes, getting more tax revenue from those getting high. Wouldn’t blueberry baked pot brownies be a hot item? How about Maine marijuana-laced maple syrup? Pot stuffed twice baked potatoes from the County?