Lobster Landing

Connecticut can lay credible claim to inventing the lobster roll in the 1920s, when Harry Perry stuffed buttered lobster into a split-top bun at his Milford eatery. Maine, however, grabbed the branding rights, and the rest is a culinary grudge match that has never quite resolved. The divide is not subtle: Maine dresses its lobster in mayo and serves it cold; Connecticut dresses its lobster in butter and serves it warm, and each side considers the other’s approach a minor form of disrespect.

At Lobster Landing in Clinton, owner Enea Bacci has no interest in neutrality. An Italian bon vivant who spotted the century-old shack from his sailboat in 1995 and promptly made it his life’s work, he doubles down on the hot-buttered heritage with a specific technique: butter melted low and slow in a double-boiler, then drizzled over the meat. Never tossed in a pan. The distinction matters to him the way brushstroke direction matters to a painter.

The shack has since accumulated nearly 900 photos and hundreds of reviews, becoming something between a pilgrimage site and a seasonal rite for Connecticut summers. The crooked O on the sign, which Enea once tried to fix, survives only because his wife Cathie stopped him. Apparently a place this iconic has no use for straight letters.