Who

Charles is the chef and owner of Pearl Oyster Bar, the venue famous for its legendary lobster roll. Charles's other claim to fame? Bringing the smackdown on her competitors.

Backstory

Pearl Oyster Bar is named after Rebecca Charles's grandmother—who was named Pearl, natch—a foodie who began taking summer trips to the coast of Maine in the early 20th century. Charles herself spent vacations in Maine and soon became obsessed with fresh New England lobster; in the 1980s, she started her culinary career there, working at Maine's Whistling Oyster and Kennebunkport's renowned White Barn Inn. Charles eventually decamped to New York to take a job at Anne Rosenzweig's landmark Upper East Side eatery Arcadia. In 1997, she teamed up with partner Mary Redding to open Pearl, which quickly attracted attention for its (extremely tasty and very authentic) lobster roll and which, if Charles is to believed, was also the first restaurant to serve a true Maine-style lobster roll on the island of Manhattan.

Drama

Charles has a well-documented history of accusing former co-workers and perfect strangers alike of plagiarizing her restaurant concept and recipes. Two years after opening Pearl, Charles and Redding had a bitter falling out, and Redding opened a competing New England-style seafood joint, Mary's Fish Camp. (Charles sued Redding; the case was later settled.) In June 2007, Charles created an even larger spectacle when she sued erstwhile Pearl Oyster Bar sous chef Ed MacFarland for copying Pearl's "each and every element" at his SoHo seafood spot, Ed's Lobster Bar. Among MacFarland's supposed thefts: a white marble bar, bar stools with wheat-straw backs, the dressing on his Caesar salad, and complementary oyster crackers. Charles' lawsuit was the first of its kind, a full-fledged intellectual property suit in the food world.

In print

In 2006, she published Lobster Rolls and Blueberry Pie: Three Generations of Recipes and Stories from Summers on the Coast of Maine.

Personal

The crotchety Charles lives in the West Village, just a few blocks from Pearl. Not surprisingly, she says she heads up to Maine every few months for her lobster fix.

True story

She once told the Times' Frank Bruni that her "death row meal"—which she may indeed eat if her acute sense of betrayal should inspire a more extreme act of retaliation—would be Beluga on toast, followed by prime rib of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, with warm brandied peaches, vanilla bean ice cream, and a piece of her grandmother's shortbread for dessert.

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