Black-and-white photos of Italian noodle-makers and vintage menus from Hong Kong dim sum parlors decorate the Honey Paw, billed as a “nondenominational” noodle joint and the latest relatably cool restaurant from one of Portland’s most winning chef-restaurateur teams, Andrew Taylor and Mike Wiley. Along with their managing partner Arlin Smith, they had already colonized a stretch of Middle Street, near the Old Port, with the critical favorites Hugo’s and Eventide Oyster Co. When the Honey Paw opened next door in April 2015, it quickly delivered on the expectation of success...
Boston Lamb Jam
Chef Thomas Pisha-Duffly and his team from The Honey Paw in Portland, Maine won the triple crown at the Boston Lamb Jam, taking home: “Best in Show”, “Best Asian” and “People’s Choice” awards for their Smoked Lamb Khao Soi.
James Beard Award semifinalists include nine from Maine
Fore Street and The Honey Paw, both in Portland, are among the restaurants named, and five chefs from four restaurants are in the running for Best Chef: Northeast.
Nine Maine restaurants, chefs and brewmasters are among this year’s semifinalists for James Beard Awards, considered the most prestigious in the American food world.
Maine’s 2016 semifinalists cover seven categories – there are 21 restaurant and chef categories in all – including Best New Restaurant and Outstanding Restaurant. The group was selected from more than 20,000 online entries.
The Honey Paw in Portland is a semifinalist in the Best New Restaurant category, which is given to a restaurant opened in 2015 that “already displays excellence … and is likely to make a significant impact in years to come.”
The 25 Best New Restaurants In America
Portland, ME | Asian-American
Best For: Slurping hand-made noodles in a town better known for lobster.
In Brief: A new restaurant from the Eventide Oyster Co. (which we included here in 2013) team, The Honey Paw uses regional ingredients in their riffs on delicious Asian food.
What to Order: Fry bread with uni butter; fried wings with coconut, lemongrass, tamarind and Thai bird chili; Vietnamese pork meatball soup with glass noodle, smoked pork broth, mortadella, roast pork and Thai bird sambal; fish head curry made with local cod, sweet potato, pickled okra, cashew, fresh turmeric, tomatillo sambal and jasmine rice.
The Autumnal Pleasures of Maine’s Summer City
by Bill Addison
The current richness of Portland’s culinary landscape — the cherished Maine ingredients mingled with the international reach of its dining options — manifests most rewardingly in the three restaurants owned by Arlin Smith, Mike Wiley, and Andrew Taylor.
And this past April, on the other side of Eventide, the three of them launched The Honey Paw, a casual hangout serving homemade pan-Asian noodles and other globetrotting comforts. The back of the block-long building they’ve effectively taken over now stretches into one extended mega-kitchen.
The Honey Paw struck me as a restaurant that will be deeply useful to its community, a place to stop in solo for a lunchtime lobster tartine (beautiful with its blanket of radishes and hijiki seaweed and celery leaves) or for sharing bowls of Thai khao soi (potent with smoked lamb, coconut curry broth, fermented greens, and fried noodles) when winter descends. The lists of craft beer and unusual wines come off as skillfully calibrated as the food.
Watch The Honey Paw, Restaurant of the Year, Prepare Coconut Chicken Curry
Dining Guide: 5 Restaurants Doing Something Different With Maine Lobster
One of the restaurant’s most popular appetizers is the lobster tartine, a highly elevated version of the shrimp toast you find in Chinese restaurants. A thin slice of bread is spread with lobster and scallop mousse, deep fried, and topped with more lobster, sliced of radish, celery leaves and hijiki. This dish is indicative of the menu here, which is all over the culinary map, with Asian and Mediterranean flavors combined in novel ways. The third restaurant from the owners of Eventide Oyster Co. and Hugo’s is one of the hottest spots in Portland.
The Honey Paw In Portland Already Feels Like An Old Friend
In its fifth month, The Honey Paw already feels like an old friend of the neighborhood. It doesn’t hurt to be owned by James Beard-nominated restaurateurs, nor does it hurt to be next-door neighbors with Eventide, arguably one of the more popular places to eat in southern Maine. But like any tenacious third born, The Honey Paw seemed to blend in with its own unique character and agenda.