High prices push lobster off restaurant menus

Late winter storms and other factors have driven lobster prices so high that restaurants have started taking them off their menus.

The price of Homarus americanus, or American lobster, the species found mainly in the North Atlantic between New Jersey and Labrador, usually increases at this time of year as reserves from the fall season are depleted by sales during New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day. But the current price of American lobster in Boston, the international distribution center for the species, is more than 30 percent higher than it was at this time last year, according to Bill Adler, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobsterman’s Association, a trade group.

Adler said Massachusetts distributors are currently paying between $9.50 and $10.50 per pound for lobsters from Canada, where the majority of lobsters available at this time of year are kept in coastal pounds. Last year at this time, the price was between $6.50 and $7.25 per pound. “I’ve never seen it this high,” he said.

“It’s just a short-term supply situation,” said Geoff Irvine, executive director of The Lobster Council of Canada, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. “We’ve had such mild winters [recently] that fisherman have been out in March, and they really haven’t been able to this year.”

As a result, distributors expecting more fresh-caught lobsters haven’t been able to get them, he said. “We had a real winter this year and people expected more fresh caught [lobsters] today than they’re getting."

Although local lobsters are usually priced a bit lower, winter storms over the past few weeks have mostly kept domestic boats in docks as well. “Because of bad weather, I’ve heard they’ve even had trouble getting to the pounds,” said Michael Leviton, chef-owner of Lumière in Newton, Mass., and Area Four in Cambridge, Mass., as well as chairman of Chefs Collaborative, a national conservation organization.

Lobster is a customary celebratory dish for Easter in parts of Europe, but Adler wondered whether they’d buy the delicacy at the price being asked for them. “I don’t even know if there’s going to be a market there [in Europe], because if this is the cost in Boston, who knows what it’s going to be there,” he said.