Leading up to the September 19 Claw Down competition, Fiona Dunlap was nervous.

Newagen Seaside Inn and Restaurant’s executive chef had not yet tasted her completed creation. She had only tasted its components. The bite-sized meal, her life's passion and work compressed into a morsel, would be served to the judges and the public in moments.

She said the separate pieces – the petite corn cake, the potato, the corn puree, the lobster, the butter sauce, the candied tarragon atop the whole dish – were fine by themselves. But she was still worried.

However, when the dish was whole and Dunlap was able to try it for herself she thought it might be a winner.

And the people who attended the first Claw Down at the Opera House agreed.

Dunlap was able to best 16 other local chefs and win the people’s choice award for the dish she titled Petite Lobster Bake.

But like her dish, the sum of the parts was not greater than the whole event.

“(Wednesday) was a really exciting day for everyone here,” she said. “We’re a team – we work together on everything, so it really was a team effort.”

While the judge’s choice went to Brown's Wharf Inn’s Micah Jones, for Dunlap, the public support of those who came out to taste the different dishes was just as sweet.

Just as important as the hardware she took back to Southport was the ability to present her unique cooking style to a crowd.

“My general manager says I have a ‘Peter Pan’ style of cooking,” she said. “My food refuses to grow up.”

Dunlap said her style is rustic and familiar, yet surprising and delicate.

Her bite-sized lobster bake was something close to her heart and her roots. She said lobster bakes were a staple of growing up on Maine's coast, and that the Inn does one every Tuesday night during July and August.

“My inspiration was the lobster bakes we have here at Newagen,” she said. “It’s like one big family dinner – we have locals and guests and staff load up on lobster.”

But every dish has a few signatures from the chef herself.

“Every single thing I produce just bleeds Fiona,” she said. “I feel that my passion comes through in every detail – from the smallest crystal to the bamboo boat we served it on.”

The style of the competition only afforded Dunlap one chance to make a big first impression. With such a small sample, she said all of her flavors had to be correct and precise.

“I have to make sure that I don’t muddle the flavors,” she said. “I had to make sure that everything was balanced, but the point of the whole dish was to highlight the lobster. That was the main ingredient.”

Dunlap said her lobsters were local, caught off Southport by lobsterman Stan Lewis.

Being able to serve so many people also served another purpose.

“My goal is to get Newagen on the food map,” Dunlap said. “Right now, we’re kind of a hidden gem.”