Twelve
115 Thames St., Portland
910-7400
twelvemaine.com
I like to wait until a new restaurant’s hype dies down before I try it, so I don’t set high expectations and get disappointed when they’re not met (the same applies to romantic relationships!). But after the Portland restaurant Twelve opened to rave reviews in 2022, it seems I waited so long that I forgot all about the place. Or maybe I was subconsciously saving my money, because Twelveain’t cheap: it’s $110 per person for the tasting menu, though you can also order a la carte.
Located inside a 150-year-old brick warehouse on the waterfront, amid the burgeoning corporate chic consuming this once-industrial area of the East End, Twelve is part of the Portland Foreside complex being built by developer Casey Prentice. The Prentice Hospitality Group owns and operates Twelve and several other high-end restaurants, including Evo Kitchen + Bar in the Old Port, and Douro, a new Portuguese fine-dining establishment just steps from Twelve.
More corporate chic? Yes, but Prentice’s company makes wonderful use of local artisans and makers for its restaurants’ interiors and wares. On our visit around the holidays, Twelve was tastefully festive, though my son remarked that he felt like we were dining in a luxury department store. I could see what he meant. The atmosphere is comfortably polished, but a bit more authenticity would go a long way.
Seated at the bar, my son and I reminisced about Christmases (and Portland) past while we watched The Polar Express slowly chug along the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad. Having both ordered the tasting menu, we were excited for the culinary ride to come. All aboard!
The first courses set us on the right track and were expertly elucidated by an eager young team member: an amuse bouche of crisp potato with red pepper purée and aioli, and a scrumptious delicata squash with grilled maitake (a.k.a. hen-of-the-woods) mushrooms, candied spiced pepitas and an unctuous charred poblano-pepper cream. Both paired well with my perfectly balanced Not a Sbagliato ($14), a mocktail made with non-alcoholic aperitifs and sparkling wine.
Next stop, appetizers. For my son, mussels stuffed with house-made ‘nduja sausage, grilled leeks and gigante beans. Similar to his own heritage, this dish was a perfect blend of southern Italy and coastal Maine. For me, beef tartare with bells and whistles of clothbound cheddar, shaved celery and peanut salsa macha. We also ordered some country bread, for an extra five bucks, that arrived just in time to do a victory lap around our plates.
For his main course, my seafood-deprived son, who’d recently returned from Minnesota, ordered scallops. He got his fix courtesy of a half dozen of the sweet little bivalves wading in a shallow pool of tarragon-flecked citrus beurre blanc. Lightly cured and perfectly seared, the mollusks were, perhaps unnecessarily, crowned with raw coins of daikon radish. And though the accompanying giardiniera (Italian-style pickled veggies) provided some crunch, he was left wishing he had something more substantial (like a starch?) with which to clean the plate of sauce.
I ordered the chicken (if you know me, you know…). This dish wormholed me back to skills class in culinary school, in the best way possible. The ballotine (deboned and stuffed) chicken was expertly cooked sous vide (inside a vacuum-sealed bag in a water bath), then wrapped in crispy chicken skin and paired with a smoky, velvety sunchoke cream, roasted sunchokes, and a tart concoction of fresh cranberry. It could have been served a tad warmer, but it was consumed happily and quickly.
At the end of the line, a couple more updated classics. The Floating Island was a beautifully simplistic plating of poached pear and goat cheese crème anglaise, and Twelve’s rice pudding evoked rustic elegance with apples and granola served in a cast-iron ramekin. Both were a tad too sweet for our palates, but after this terrible-no-good year, I’ll gladly sugarcoat the finale.
Twelve is open for dinner Tues.-Sun. at 5 p.m. Reservations are recommended.
