Seaside's seafood

A delicate touch in the Old Port

by Joan Lang

Seaside Park, 82 Exchange Street, Portland
772-2737, Monday-Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Friday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Sunday, 4 to 9 p.m.
All major credit cards accepted. Full bar

TWO IN ONE: Seaside Park resides in the place of two former eateries, Glen Abbey Gourmet and Zach's New York Deli.

This spring and summer have seen a flurry of new restaurant faces in Portland, and one of the most welcome is Seaside Park. It's been a while since we've had a new seafood restaurant in town, what with steak, barbecue, and pizza, pizza, and more pizza so popular these days. But seafood is just what Pam Parks -- daughter and sister of fishermen and lobstermen -- has always wanted to bring to the Old Port, ever since her first job as a dishwasher at the tender age of 13. Since then, she's been working around the state in different restaurants (Wormwood's in Saco, Governor's in South Portland, Chili's), all the while sharpening her skills and dreaming about her own place.

In July, she and her husband, Michael (who's keeping his day job with the Department of Human Services for now), got their wish, working pretty much around the clock to get Seaside Park open in time for OpSail.

The effort shows. Crafted from two smaller, side-by-side businesses -- Glen Abbey Gourmet and Zach's New York Deli -- Seaside Park is a very pretty place, with homey exposed brick, glazed sponge-painted walls in soothing tones of blue and salmon-orange, and slick-as-a-whistle black-and-white tile floors. There's a snug bar on the left, and a more spacious dining room, complete with a huge fish tank, on the right.

If God is in the details, then Parks is a religious sort, having ferreted out all kinds of little items that add personality: funky baskets and metal sculptures, Villeroy & Boch-style plates, colorful sea-glass candles, long-stemmed wine and water goblets, butter spreaders with ceramic handles in the shape of rope. It's all vaguely nautical, without being clichéd, a great mix of elegance and wit.

Many of her recipes are family interpretations of New England classics like baked stuffed haddock and lobster pie, and she has hired a chef who knows how to execute them -- James Litardo, a friend of a friend, last cooked at Gosman's Dock in Montauk, New York, famed all over the east end of Long Island for its fresh seafood. Litardo has a deft, subtle hand with fish and shellfish. He buys his seafood every other day from Harbor Fish, and then he treats it with respect, just as simple as that. The menu may be very straightforward, but the quality is everywhere apparent.

Clam chowder is made with whole cherrystones, for instance, not canned chopped clams. Fried seafood is breaded to order, the reason it's all so delicate. Salmon is cut from the whole fish. No bells and whistles, just good fresh stuff, intelligently handled.

Fried calamari, available as an appetizer or an entrée, is just plain delicious -- lightly crisp and tasting of the sea. Quesadillas are loaded with big chunks of lobster meat, artfully poached. And the Lobster Corn Cakes are truly fabulous, more like a delicate soufflé than a heavy cake -- the "trick," according to Parks, is the crushed cornflakes used as the sole binder to the sweet lobster. The hot shrimp and artichoke dip, chockablock with tender Maine shrimp and spinach too, is a great little shareable with its accompaniment of warm focaccia bread, though I'd nix the word "spicy" from the menu description.

Dinners come with a tossed salad, served family style in a big wooden bowl with more of that focaccia, a nice touch that typifies the way Parks and Litardo seem to do everything around here.

Seaside's whole fried clams would have made my recent list of the best in town -- but then I wouldn't have been able to taste the rest of the menu. And I beg Parks not to take fried oysters off the menu; I know they don't sell, but they must be spectacular.

The baked stuffed lobster pie is sinfully rich, a motherlode of lobster meat in an old-fashioned creamy Newburg sauce, a dish that has been around forever but is seldom handled with such care. Likewise, the broiled seafood sampler under a mantle of crumb stuffing is a model of its kind, but more than any single person could eat. And if the dill-horseradish on an otherwise perfect special of fresh haddock is a little strong for some tastes, it's easy enough to avoid the way Litardo has plated it.

For the record, there's also steak, chicken, and pork chops on the menu -- plus a slew of tempting-sounding sandwiches and burgers at lunch. The wine list is small, though Parks aims to expand it, and there's a good selection of local beers and microbrews.

We shouldered on through dessert and weren't disappointed with an uncommonly light bourbon apple bread pudding, served in a big mug, and an absolutely sensational homemade cheesecake in a chocolaty Oreo crust. All the desserts, in fact, are made on the premises -- surprising how that perks up the appetite, even after a big meal.

Joan Lang can be reached at joanmlang@aol.com.