“This dish always features a claw and one and a half tails. The claw is poached in butter, but you can’t do a whole lobster like that; you need an unholy amount of butter. It’s unhealthy and impractical. So we roast the tails shell down with a compound butter made of garlic, lemon zest, lemon, a bit of thyme … we change it seasonally. We interlock the two tails so that it will stand up high.”
“At different times we use Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, and various greens. The squash is caramelized with a little honey or maple syrup, or sometimes just sugar and butter. I always like to put a lot of vegetables on plate. It roots the lobster, keeps it from slipping and sliding.”
“I like to have two different sauces so you’re not taking the same bite over and over again. This one is a red-wine-and-squab sauce, very earthy and rich; it grounds the dish in a way. It’s borrowed from Jacques Maximim, a chef I worked with many years ago.”
“This is just white port, some lime, butter, and a little ginger juice. We aerate it at pickup so it’s an accent to both the lobster and the other sauce. You can eat a bite with the white sauce and then a bite with the red sauce, or you can eat both together. ”