Maine has a position on lobster rolls, and that position is: cold, mayo, no heat, no argument. Stephanie Cmar — private chef, culinary consultant, Top Chef alum, and a cook who actually lives in Maine — arrived with standing to enforce it. The question was not what kind of lobster roll but how to execute the Maine version at a level Bobby Flay, a warm-Connecticut-butter man at heart, could not match on its own terms.
Cmar's lobster was steamed, not poached, which is the Maine method — the shell acts as a moisture barrier and the interior steams rather than poaching in water, keeping the meat drier and less prone to dilution. She chilled the meat to 40°F before dressing with mayo that had been seasoned only with celery salt and white pepper, no lemon juice, so the acid didn't break the emulsion over time. The roll was toasted in clarified butter.
Bobby Flay is an excellent cook. He is not a Maine lobster roll cook. Stephanie Cmar is.
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