Counter meal: the lobster roll at Banco is a dish we love

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It’s a familiar refrain you’ll hear from bartenders and drinks journo hanger-on types alike: the best place to eat is at the bar. And the quality of snacks, eats, drinking food — call it what you will — has never been better.

So in this column, Counter Meal, we’ll be looking at the dishes that are making the bar a more delicious place to be. 

Like the lobster roll. It’s a dish with humble origins; there was a time when lobsters were for the enjoyment of those who did the catching, not the rich. Today, of course, lobster is a little luxury — it’s not an everyday food. 

In the States, the lobster roll breaks down into two general styles: Maine style, or Connecticut. Maine style essentially means that the lobster meat is chilled, with mayo and some chopped herbs; to go Connecticut style is to embrace a warm roll with warm butter across your lobster. Hot or cold — it is that simple. 

Things are a little more laissez faire here in Australia, with our chefs and bartenders alike taking liberties with the originals to come up with some creative, delicious riffs.

While it’s not strictly a bar, you can sit at Supernormal’s bar for a drink and a snack. Their lobster roll has been a standard bearer of the genre here — at first in Melbourne, and now at their Brisbane outpost — since it first appeared on the menu in 2011.

In more recent times, you’ll find another fine example of the lobster roll at Shell House in Sydney, as part of their happy hour and served up in the Menzies Bar.

But for our money, the best take on the lobster roll we’ve had has got to be the lobster roll at wine and cocktail bar Banco in Manly. At Banco, the lobster roll is a simple affair: fresh lobster, a miso mayo, seasoning and chives on a toasted brioche bun. And, as Banco owner Kurtis Bosley explains in the interview here, whereas other variations add often superfluous ingredients to bulk out the dish, at Banco the lobster and its sweet, briny taste, is the star of the show.

Boothby: When did you notice a lot of places were doing a lobster roll?

Kurtis Bosley: When Shell House opened, what was that two, three years ago? They had one in there in their happy hour. It was a $10 lobster roll with the mini Martini’s and in a venue like that,  you’ll see somewhere like that do it and then all of a sudden it’ll pop up in 20 other places very quickly. 

And so it popped up in your place. Why did you want to put one on? It’s pretty good drinking food too.

Definitely. It was one of the first things — it was on our original menu. We’ve had that on there since opening. We were trying to find, I guess, dishes that spoke to the brand at the time. And that was something that I think elevated away from fish sandwiches or whatever that we all love to eat down in Manly. And we had a bit more of a seafood approach at the start; we’ve kind of gone away from that now. But the lobster roll is something that’s actually stayed on our menu for the entire time. We approach our food with a very strict charcoal, fire, smoke influence. And even though that is the overall influence, the lobster roll has still stayed on that menu just because it’s approachable. 

It’s a good thing to eat while you’re drinking. And it sits so nicely on so many menus, regardless of the approach, regardless of the theme, it just plays its role. 

What do you think makes a good lobster roll? What are the qualities you’re looking for in the ones that you put on at Banco?

Keep it simple. Don’t mess around with it. The full ingredients for ours is a miso butter which we make in house. A nice, toasted brioche roll. Fresh lobster is really important. So we get fresh lobster tails in and cook them. And then all it is some lemon zest, pepper and Hellmann’s mayo and that’s it. 

Hellmann’s mayo, really?

That’s the mayo of choice. It is for us at least. 

How important is it to use the fresh lobster as opposed to buying stuff that’s been frozen for a while?

So what we’ve found in a lot of places, and I think this is why it turned a lot of people off that particular dish. A lot of venues stopped doing it — there’s a lot of slipper meat that is available that people are using. 

What do you call that — slipper meat?

Right. Slipper meat is essentially what venues were buying to bulk out their lobster roll. 

The [suppliers] saw the increase in people buying lobster and bug meat and the prices went from I think it was like $35 a kilo, and skyrocketed up to like $59, to $90.

So it has basically doubled in price to make.

The suppliers were going, okay, what can we do to push some of our other lines? What we found was places were using slipper meat to bulk it out. And then they’re also getting frozen lobster tails. Now, I can see the value in something like frozen lobster tails or frozen lobster meat, but I think there’s a textural thing that gets lost. And one thing you find with ours, it’s got this bounce and it’s got this chew to it.

The texture of it once it’s cooked from fresh, it’s unbeatable. There’s no comparison.

I noticed too, there’s this lingering flavour of the lobster, that sweetness, which was lovely; sometimes when you get the frozen stuff and it’s been cooked it’s just a bit bland.

And then you’ll find that what places are doing to get that flavour back in there, they’re pumping it full of all different spices or other things around it. And that’s where you lose that simplicity. So it doesn’t taste like lobster anymore.

What bars I think do really well is keep things simple, get really good ingredients. When you want to go somewhere and just have a drink and something to eat, you don’t want it to be too complicated.

Lobster Roll Recipe a la Banco

As Bosley points out in the interview, the key to making a great lobster roll is fresh lobster, and keeping it simple.

Ingredients

• Cultured butter
• Miso paste
• Fresh southern rock lobster
• Lemon zest
• Iceberg lettuce
• Chives, finely chopped
• Small brioche rolls
• Hellmann’s mayonnaise

Method

1. Make compound butter with miso. Ensure you’re using a cultured butter (best to make this from scratch in venue). Cream the butter and miso together with a 2:1 ratio of butter to miso.

2. Cook and prep lobster meat. Using live southern rock lobster is best. Keep all excess lobster for bisque! 

3. Mix with Hellmann’s mayo, lemon zest, and pepper to taste.

To serve

1. Butter a small brioche roll and cook on a flat top until toasted.

2. Add iceberg lettuce, lobster and chives.

Recipe from Kurtis Bosley, Banco, Manly.