Nick Krunkkala stands the bar in his restaurant, Oysterhead Pizza Co., located at 189 Main St. in Damariscotta on Tuesday, May 21. Krunkkala is a lifelong cook, sports enthusiast, and pop-culture connoisseur originally from Cape Elizabeth who has lived in Damariscotta for nearly a decade. (Johnathan Riley photo)
Certain things lend themselves to sharing, but there’s something special about food that brings people together. No one knows that better than Nick Krunkkala, the owner of Oysterhead Pizza Co., at 189 Main St. in Damariscotta. While the lifelong food lover shares his culinary passions with the public, he is also an avid pop-culture fan, national champion lacrosse player, and father of two daughters.
Krunkkala, of Damariscotta, originally from Cape Elizabeth, initially came to the area for a few reasons: the good schools, the natural beauty, and nearby family.
However, he said going to the Portland Farmers’ Market put Lincoln County on his map.
“After going to the market for awhile, I started to notice that all of the farms were from this area and as a chef you want to be near where they’re growing good food,” Krunkkala said. “The Midcoast, in my opinion, is like the bread basket of Maine.”
According to the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission, there are over 300 farms in Lincoln County, with over 6,000 acres of total crop land.
Krunkkala has been in the area now for 10 years working as a chef for different places such as the Spruce Point Inn in Boothbay where he was the executive chef.
Cooking delicious food is something Krunkkala has been doing since he was a kid. He said his parents worked long hours while growing up and learning to cook for himself became an adventure all on its own.
“I loved it, I’ve always loved food,” Krunkkala said. “When I first started out I was obsessed with making sauces. I used to get crazy creative with those.”
While cooking has been a mainstay passion of his, after high school Krunkkala pursued different interests at the New York Institute of Technology where he got a degree in communications and played lacrosse.
“I’m a super jock,” Krunkkala said. “I’ve always played sports and been active.”
In high school, Krunkkala was an All-American lacrosse player, playing the midfield position, and in college his team was the winner of the 2003 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II Men’s lacrosse tournament.
“I was pretty quick for a guy my size,” he said.
After graduating from college, Krunkkala said he decided to go to culinary school while living with friends whom he cooked for often. After feeding those friends, they urged Krunkkala to consider furthering his flavorful talents.
He attended a nine-month culinary program at the Culinary Academy of Long Island and proceeded to work in he called “finer dining” for most of his culinary career.
“I love food, food is culture, it is history, it’s all that and more. You can learn a lot about a person just by what they eat,” Krunkkala said. “I just love it, love creating food and seeing people’s reactions.”
After culinary school, Krunkkala worked at an upscale Italian restaurant in New York City called Palio, which received praise from The New York Times, before he returned to Maine.
Krunkkala said coming back to Maine was spurred by a desire to be in his home state.
While he enjoys cooking at a high level, the monetary barrier fine dining presented was something that felt against his own values.
“It didn’t seem right that to work in a place where the dishwasher would have to save for months to be able to afford to eat dinner there,” Krunkkala said. “The inaccessibility of fine dining bothered me.”
The antithesis of that thought for him is a community oriented, accessible to everyone, mindset, which is what he hopes to continue to cultivate at the restaurant while still producing delicious food.
“I want to make good food at a reasonable price and if you do that you get the chance to see the same people every day,” Krunkkala said. “That’s important to me.”
In fall 2019, Krunkkala started working at Oysterhead Pizza Co. as the head chef after spending that summer working at Coveside Restaurant and Marina in South Bristol. At the time, both were owned by Alex and Rachel Nevens, who currently own the Newcastle Publick House. In 2022, Krunkkala bought Oysterhead Pizza Co. from the couple.
Since then, Krunkkala said he’s been able to bring together a few of his interests in the restaurant, including his love for pop-culture references and art.
“I’m a big movie and music guy,” Krunkkala said. “I’ve got references all over the place, and sometimes they’re very small moments in film. I got the leg lamp in the mail one day and had no idea who sent it to me,” he said. “It arrived in a box that said ‘fragile’ and we figured out it was a gift from my dad. I never had a place to put it until I owned the restaurant.”
Krunkkala has since put the iconic leg lamp in the front window, a reference to the famous holiday film “A Christmas Story.”
The napkin dispensers are also adorned with photos of celebrities enjoying pizza, everyone from musician Katy Perry to “Game of Thrones” actor Peter Dinklage; there’s a photo of Betty White eating a hot dog; Larry David sitting on a sandwich.
The menu is no different in its range of obscure to popular references, but for Krunkkala, it’s fun and adds to making the restaurant his own.
“A lot of the references don’t make sense.” Krunkkala said, laughing.
While the restaurant consumes most of Krunkkala day, he’s still able to carve out time to spend with his two girls, Penelope, 8, and Kadence, 11, both of whom attend Great Salt Bay Community School in Damariscotta.
Krunkkala said during the summer, he and the girls love being down the Bristol peninsula at Pemaquid Beach, getting dinner at Shaw’s Fish and Lobster Wharf in New Harbor, and if the occasion allows, stopping by Granite Hall Store in Round Pond for a sweet treat.
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