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Food trucks, inventive restaurants and craft beer galore – Baltimore has found a firm place on the foodie map of America, as Peter Ellegard discovers.
Contemplating a culinary based visit to America is like browsing a fine dining restaurant menu.
New York, LA, New Orleans, Philadelphia… So many options, so much food for thought.
Then there’s Baltimore. This unsung Maryland city close to the nation’s capital is unlikely to feature as an appetiser for food-loving British visitors, let alone as the main course.
Yet it’s becoming a foodies’ favourite, with restaurant reviewer Zagat ranking it number two in its 2015 list of top US food cities. I last visited Baltimore 15 years ago so a second helping is long overdue.
Here on a gastro tour, I want to get a taste of the new Baltimore. While its picturesque Inner Harbour was the focal point for my last visit, there is so much more going on across the city now. It has a real buzz about it, largely thanks to its vibrant, eclectic eating and drinking scene.
First course after leaving our waterfront hotel, the Royal Sonesta Harbor Court, is breakfast at Modern Cook Shop, a contemporary eatery in the heart of trendy Fell’s Point neighbourhood (there are 120 pubs and bars here alone), with tables partitioned off by wire cages full of old food tins and packets. I opt for the recommended “house made scrapple”, like a sliced sausage loaf, and eggs. Pretty good for starters.
We stroll past the quaint, historic houses lining the Fell’s Point waterfront and entrepreneur Kevin Plank’s chic new hotel the Sagamore Pendry Baltimore, set in the old harbourmaster’s building.
Then it’s up, up and away in a six passenger Bell 407 helicopter for a bird’s eye view of Baltimore. We are among the first passengers for month-old Charm City Helicopters, and pilot and co-founder Freddie Ephraim gives us a fascinating aerial tour of the city – tours start at $129 and are commissionable (flycharmcity.com).
During our 15 minutes airborne we see highlights including the Inner Harbor, the stadiums of the Baltimore Ravens NFL team and Baltimore Orioles baseball team (who are out practising as we fly overhead). At the tip of a peninsula jutting into the Patapsco river, we spot the star-shaped Fort McHenry – the bombardment of which, in the war of 1812 by the British, inspired Francis Scott Key to write The Star- Spangled Banner.
The river opens into Chesapeake Bay and it becomes apparent just how much Baltimore is dominated by water. “It’s a water city,” Ephraim tells us over the headphone intercom. “We’re not Venice, but we’re pretty close.”
Back on terra firma, it’s a traditional lunch of Maryland blue crabs on the outdoor crab deck of Inner Harbor institution Phillips Seafood, where diners munch their way through more than $100,000 worth of crabs on busy Saturdays.
Our waitress demonstrates “crab picking” – breaking the shells apart using a wooden mallet and fingers to get to the tasty meat. This is not somewhere to wear your Sunday best, as some of our party discover. Other diners have the right idea, donning optional disposable aprons.
A tour and whiskey tasting at newly opened Sagamore Spirit Distillery, also owned by Kevin Plank and the first waterfront distillery in the US, follows. Maryland once had more than 240 distilleries, until Prohibition and then the Second World War, when many switched to producing ethanol.
Sagamore is helping to put Maryland back on the whiskey map and there are now around 20 in the state. The whiskey we see being distilled in the new facility, from spring water trucked down from upstate Sagamore Farm – where the Vanderbilts once raised race horses including legendary thoroughbred Native Dancer – won’t be ready to be bottled and drunk for four years. A restaurant alongside the distillery opens later this year.
Dinner is at Wit & Wisdom, an upscale “tavern” by celebrity chef Michael Mina in Baltimore’s harbourside Four Seasons Hotel, after cocktails on the terrace.
After a tuna tartare starter I indulge in a delicious lobster pot pie with wagyu beef, both prepared with a flourish at the table, before we move to high stools in front of the show kitchen for delicate dessert creations paired with wines.
Miss Shirley’s, an Inner Harbour dining icon famous for its Chesapeake and Southern-influenced home-style food, beckons for breakfast the next morning. I can’t resist the eggs benedict with crab, washed down with a bloody mary containing crabmeat and flavoured with Baltimore favourite Old Bay seasoning, while we share sides of devilled eggs, fried green tomatoes and monkey bread.
We walk off the meal (more breakfeast than breakfast) along the boutique shop-lined streets of the uber-cool, retro Hampden neighbourhood, stopping to try artisan chocolates from around the world at Ma Petite Shoe, where owner Susannah Siger also stocks quirky designer shoes inspired by the like of Star Wars.
Visit Baltimore’s Julia Watkins explains that Baltimore has historically been a blue-collar city with seafood its typical fare, but in recent years it has seen a shift to food styles from many different countries and cultures, including South America, the Mediterranean, India and south-east Asia.
“We have really started to see changes happen over the past five years and in the last three years Baltimore has really been on the map for cuisine,” she says. “There are chefs doing really innovative things and something unique to Baltimore is that the chefs collaborate all the time; some have pop-ups in each other’s restaurants and even swap their sommeliers. We also have a few Michelin-starred chefs.”
Lunch stop R. House is the perfect example of Baltimore’s foodie innovation: a 350-seat food hall set in an old car body repair workshop, featuring 10 permanent food stalls run by local chefs plus a weekly changing pop-up stall. When we visit, Colombian chef Valeria Fuentes is rustling up a special, authentic Latin American dish, chicken majadito with avocados, in her pop-up Kinetic Kitchen.
Like many US cities, Baltimore is also undergoing a craft beer boom. Many breweries have opened in recent years and we join a three-hour minibus tour taking in a selection of them with City Brew Tours.
Our guide takes us to three of the city’s dozen breweries – Oliver Brewing Co, Brew House No 16, in a former fire station, and Waverly Brewing Co.
We taste three brews at each stop, with names like Ironman, Bishop’s Breakfast, Strawberry Bang Bang and the Local Oyster, which is brewed using oyster shells.
A short walk from Waverly’s brews brings us to La Cuchara, an award-winning restaurant with wood-fired Basque cuisine. I’m amazed that we are in a small US city enjoying a meal as stunning as you would find in northern Spain and with equally glorious wines. It underlines how Baltimore has become a world-class, cosmopolitan dining destination.
Zack Mills, executive chef at Wit & Wisdom, gives his take on the foodie phenomenon: “In addition to being known for the best seafood on the East Coast, in recent years Baltimore has become a premier food destination. This city has everything for visitors including a rich history, waterfront views – and an exciting dining scene.”
One thing’s for sure: you need to bring an appetite when you visit Baltimore, and plan to diet afterwards!
Book it: North America Travel Service has a twin-centre Baltimore & Washington DC itinerary from £1,189pp, including flights, rail travel between the two cities, four nights’ accommodation in Baltimore and two nights in Washington DC, plus a three-hour culinary tour and a fivehour brewery tour in Baltimore.
