Restaurants evolve and grow. Last fall, when we first visited Osteria Pirata, Ashish Alfred’s lively take on the too-often stodgily executed classic Italian restaurant concept, it was newly open and still trying to find its footing. While the food was excellent, the service lacked, shall we say, polish. When we returned in January, we found a smattering of new dishes, originals that we loved, and servers and bartenders who knew their stuff.

Alfred, whose original Baltimore restaurant, the exquisite Duck Duck Goose, is around the corner in Fells Point, has worked in Italian restaurants throughout his career, and finds the food approachable. The same can be said for the design of the Osteria Pirata, which means Pirate Tavern in Italian. (The backs of coasters detail why the British dubbed Baltimore a “nest of pirates” during the War of 1812.) Baltimore design firms Cohere and PI.KL Studio created an interior that’s bright and airy. Yellow is a primary color here, and there are fun quirks, like a motorbike that hangs above the stairway to the lower level.

From our first visits, we found the atmosphere welcoming and the food fantastic. The menu has ebbed and flowed since the restaurant’s opening, but its core remains the same: contemporary takes on Italian classics. Starters are particularly strong. You won’t find fried calamari, ubiquitous on many Italian restaurant menus, here. Instead, it’s braised and served with fregola pearl pasta and a jalapeño pesto sauce that provides pop. Chilled shrimp puttanesca, served atop diced tomatoes and cucumbers with a chile aioli sauce, is crisp and refreshing.

But the star is a giant arancini ball that could easily be a meal. During a trip to Italy, Alfred didn’t encounter many of the smaller, golf ball-sized arancini often found in American restaurants. “All I had were standalone, ostrich-egg-sized things,” he said. “It was people’s entire lunch.” The interior of risotto with melted mozzarella melds together perfectly after the ball is fried then finished in the oven.

Mains include stalwarts like chicken and eggplant Parm, and on our last visit, a tasty gnocchi piccata. But we’d steer most people toward the pastas, many of which are made in-house. The best of the bunch was the soul-warming gemelli with pesto and sweet Italian sausage and the 40-layer lasagna. It arrives on its side (all the better to count the layers) in a wonderful tomato sugo. While its edges were crisp, its interior was nice and gooey—yet it held its form.

Even the best of food can’t overcome spotty service, and while everyone we encountered during our first two visits was perfectly nice, the operation was leaky. When we walked through the door, we weren’t greeted for quite some time. Eventually we were seated—at a table that wasn’t set. During a chat with a friendly server, she mentioned that she hadn’t eaten at the restaurant. She didn’t know whether a pasta dish we inquired about was served with red or white sauce. But these issues are easily corrected when a restaurant has potential. Upon our return in January, the service was on its way.

Osteria Pirata has grown up quickly, and we’re fans of what it’s become.

OSTERIA PIRATA: 1640 Thames St., Fells Point, 443-835-4106. HOURS: Mon.-Thurs. 4-9:30 p.m.; Fri. 4-10 p.m.; Sat. 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sun. 10 a.m.- 9:30 p.m. PRICES: Appetizers: $14-24; pastas and entrees: $18-39; desserts: $12.

On the back walls on the first floor of No Way Rosé, past the Instagram-worthy neon sign, beyond the wall of faux flowers and bistro-style tables, are oversized images of two titans of gastronomy. In one, Anthony Bourdain, bags under his eyes, is extending his right middle finger directly toward, well, everyone in the place. In the other, famed Michelin-starred French chef Paul Bocuse, his toque reaching the ceiling, points to a tattoo of a rooster on his right arm.

Message received. Ashish Alfred’s restaurant, bar, and lounge in Federal Hill is a French cafe unlike any other in the city.

“It speaks a lot to me as a cook,” Alfred says. “Although my background is rooted in very traditional French cooking, I don’t like to take it too seriously. There’s the grandfather of French cooking, Paul Bocuse, on the wall, and he’s being kind of playful. Just next to him is Tony Bourdain, who laughed in the face of all of that for a long time.”

Alfred, purveyor of the more decorous Duck Duck Goose in Fells Point, wanted his latest venture to have a bit of whimsy. The name itself is a clever nod to the restaurant’s location in the neighborhood, near the late great dive, No Way Jose. It opened last March, with a menu that included upscale offerings like beef tartare, bucatini, and burrata. But, as spring rolled into summer, Alfred noticed that it was drawing a younger crowd than at his other restaurants, and those patrons were as interested in the scene as they were in the food.

“It was a good gut check for me as a chef,” Alfred says. “You can make the best escargot, you can make the best duck confit, foie gras, but if there’s no market for it, it doesn’t matter. As a chef you can get caught up in your own juju. I just assumed that great classic French food would work here. It didn’t.”

So Alfred shuttered the restaurant in September and set out to reimagine the space for a younger audience. And it reopened in November with an entirely new feel.

While Bourdain, Bocuse, and those pretty pink flowers remain, Alfred debuted a new, more approachable menu. Entrees are still available in the dining room upstairs, but the downstairs space has been transformed into a bar and lounge exclusively. Live music and/or DJs are featured Thursdays through Sundays, and when they’re not there, upbeat music pumps through the speakers.

True to the restaurant’s name, rosé, which is clearly having a moment, is featured in some cocktails. The Menage a Framboise, a frozen combination of rosé, vodka, raspberries, honey, coriander, and cherry liquor, reminded us of an adult slushy. More standard albeit fancifully named drinks are available as well, like the Paris Loves My Oui Oui—mezcal with grappa, passion fruit, nutmeg, agave, and cherry bitters. If you want to be noticed, order the Serendipité, a bourbon-based libation that is finished using a torch lighter to smoke its contents.

Downstairs, smaller shared plates are available. Most of the ones we tried in November were quite good. Chicken-fried lamp chops are pounded flat in the kitchen, fried, and served with a tangy whipped feta and dill sauce. It’s among the most inventive takes on lamb we’ve encountered.

Another winner was the tuna tartare. Fresh pieces of fish doused in sesame oil, a bit of hoisin, and some lime juice pop when eaten on crunchy fried wonton shells. Poutine—fried in duck fat and smothered in gravy and cheese curds—is the perfect dish for the downstairs’ new party vibe. It’s a great accompaniment to a first drink, or a gateway to several more.

The mozzarella stick—quite likely the fattest one you’ll ever see—is hand-breaded and served with a pleasingly sweet tomato sauce and roasted garlic. Again, it’s a clever take on a bar food staple.

Although the entree selection is limited, the ones we ate on an earlier visit were excellent. As at his other restaurants, Alfred’s signature duck confit shines. Nearly identical to the version served at Duck Duck Goose, it was an impressively juicy piece of bone-in meat covered with crispy skin. It shows the simple yet sophisticated inclination that’s made Alfred a rising star in the culinary world, and it’s not to be missed. A bowl of mussels was also quite good, and the French fries that accompanied them were crunchy and tasty.

After dinner we were stuffed, but we forged ahead and ordered dessert. Pastry chef Ana Pino’s chocolate-hazelnut mousse was sweet but not overbearingly rich. We somehow managed to finish it all, and we’d like to think that Bourdain and Bocuse would have approved of our empty plates.

NO WAY ROSÉ: 31 E. Cross St., 443-438-6780. HOURS: Wed.-Sun., 4 p.m.-1 a.m. PRICES: Shares: $9-21; mains: $20-25; desserts: $14. AMBIANCE: A European party.

Ashish Alfred, owner of Duck Duck Goose in Fells Point, as well as Duck Duck Goose and George’s Chophouse in Bethesda, has long shared his harrowing story of drug addiction. Ironically, he says, in some ways getting sober—exactly six years ago this month—has helped him cope with the COVID crisis.

“People in sobriety are almost better armed for this,” says Alfred. “We are somewhat accustomed to being with our own thoughts and dealing with those things and processing things.”

Hospitality workers are particularly poised for survival, he says. “Restaurant people are some of the toughest people in the world—we will find a way to get all of our people back to work and we will find a way to come back better than before, though it’s going to be a tough road getting there.”

How are you doing?
What’s really tough is that any time you find a moment of peace, the first thing that crosses your mind is your staff. We do our due diligence to make sure that everyone who works for us is within the letter of the law as far as their immigration status goes, but, in spite of that, people are still able to get forged documents and get hired. I worry about that group of people very, very much and it gives me a very uneasy, almost nauseating feeling to think about how these people are getting through. These people have worked so hard, be it a year or eight years, to build a life for themselves. For them to not know where their next meal is coming from is awful.

You’ve had your struggles, you’ve been brought to your knees from drug addiction—has that steeled you to survive this?
I’m not one to preach to anyone, but I would give caution that sooner or later, we will come out on the other side of this. If people don’t take steps to care for themselves in the right way during this downtime, it’s going to be very difficult to transition back to regular life at the end of all this. Sleeping all day is not the answer, drinking all day is not the answer. My two cents that I’ve given my staff is to try to find some sense of normalcy.

Everyone I know in my sober network has been doing pretty well, though I’m sure that’s not the case for everyone. For me, it knocked me out of my routine—it messed up my eating, sleeping, and gym schedule. For the first six or eight days, I was unreachable. I was hardly eating. I was lying in bed all day and sleeping. I was super-depressed.

“If people don’t take steps to care for themselves in the right way during this downtime, it’s going to be very difficult to transition back to regular life at the end of all this. Sleeping all day is not the answer, drinking all day is not the answer.”
—Ashish Alfred

I know you emptied your inventory after you closed and gave the food to your staff. That must have been such a difficult day.
It was heartbreaking. I cried in front of the staff. I didn’t know what to tell them. These people have come to me for everything, ‘Can you help me fill out this paper for my daughter’s school?’ Of if they buy a car, they want to bring the car to me so I can see it. It was an indescribable event.

You’ve been outspoken about encouraging consumers not to use dining apps, even making an Instagram video with a plea to consumers. Can you talk about that?
Restaurants in Baltimore and D.C. have done well because we’ve come together as family to support each other. I’m not in a position where I can donate a lot of money to a whole bunch of people, but if I can somehow make a difference and save restaurants from paying super high commissions, then that’s a good day at the office.

[Dining app companies] are saying, ‘Hey help us help restaurants. Order from them now to help them out.’ They’ll say no delivery fees, well that does nothing for the restaurant. I’d like to see them waive their fees until we see our way out of this thing.

You haven’t been offering carryout, but I know you plan to start this week. Why the change of heart?

We’re going to try to do takeout, and, because I’ve made such a stink of it, were going to try to be open without the apps. We will launch this Friday at all three restaurants. People need to realize that the money restaurants are making from carryout is just to support their staff. No one is making money. People are doing this just to keep their staff afloat.

What kinds of things will be on the carryout menu at Duck Duck Goose?

We are going to do foods that will travel well and we will include a set of instructions for heating. We will definitely have our foie gras tournedos. Nothing makes quarantine better than foie gras. We will also have risotto and zero-proof cocktails for people who are tired of drinking or people who are tired of drinking soda water.

“I have learned from this that I am not my restaurants, my restaurants are not me. Life and things will be okay. That’s not what anyone wants to hear right now, but it’s important to remember that.”

What do you think the landscape will look like when this is over?
I had a dinner scheduled at the James Beard house in May, which was cancelled. I had the opportunity to talk to their director, Izabela Wojcik, and we talked for 30 minutes about what restaurants will look like at the end of this. I am sure it will be a little while before people are eager to pile on top of each other into a place, or wait in an eight-by-eight foyer while they are on a 45-minute wait for a table, but I’m sure we will find a way.

Will people leave the profession?
If you’ve been a restauranteur for five, 10, or 20 years, you’re not going to say, ‘I’m going to be an accountant.’ No, you’re going to go right back to restaurants. People will always need a place to go eat.

What have you learned from all of this?

The liberating thing that might be important for other restaurateurs to hear is that this is a very busy business—we give all of ourselves to this, whether you’ve got a bar that serves wings and pizza or a fine-dining restaurant. If you’re in the restaurant business, it really takes up a lot of your time, but I have learned from this that I am not my restaurants, my restaurants are not me. Life and things will be okay. That’s not what anyone wants to hear right now, but it’s important to remember that.

What’s the first thing you’re going to do when this is over?

I’m going to hug my mother. And put a post-dated paycheck in the hands of every single person who works for me.

Bushfires continue to ravage Australia, with at least 28 people dead, more than 3,000 homes destroyed or damaged, and an estimated billion-plus animals lost, according to CNN. Sadly, the unprecedented bushfires have been exacerbated by widespread drought and persistent heat.

In an effort to aid the country and give back, Baltimore chefs are taking matters into their own hands. Both La Food Marketa and Duck Duck Goose will donate proceeds from dinner and brunch service on specific days this weekend in an attempt to help Australia fight the wildfires and rehabilitate.

La Food Marketa, the Pikesville sister restaurant of The Food Market in Hampden, will donate 50 percent of funds from brunch this Sunday, January 19 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., to the Australian Red Cross. The event will be the spot’s latest “Brunch for a Benefit,” an ongoing series that has previously supported organizations such as The Movember Foundation and The Alzheimer’s Association.

“When we opened La Food Marketa, we wanted it to be a community restaurant,” says Chad Gauss, executive chef and co-owner. “We feel that many people want to give back and have sorrow and empathy for what’s happening in Australia, but they might not be familiar with how to give back. We wanted to create an opportunity for people to do that.”

At La Food Marketa, expect a brunch packed with fun takes on omelets, eggs benedict, and pancakes. Highlights include pancake enchiladas stuffed with turkey, cheese, bacon and topped with syrup, as well as the “El Benedict,” featuring cured ham, cheese bread, and Mexican ketchup. As an added bonus, many brunch dishes can be modified to be gluten-free.

Down in Fells Point, Baltimoreans can dine for a good cause at Duck Duck Goose, where all of the proceeds from dinner this Friday night, January 17, will go toward Ellen Degeneres’ Australia Bushfire Relief fund on GoFundMe. Owner Ashish Alfred’s Bethesda location of Duck Duck Goose and his nearby George’s Chophouse will also donate all Friday-night proceeds to the relief fund.

“What’s happening [in Australia] is real—you can’t make that up,” Alfred says. “As chefs, we get into this business because we want to make people happy, care for people, and nourish them. Restaurants become part of the communities we’re in. And I think this was good opportunity for us to get involved in something important overseas.”

Alfred says he and his team kicked around ideas for how to help, until they saw that Degeneres had set up a relief fund and decided to get behind it.

In addition to the signature cheese boards, dry-aged ribeye burger, and honey-roasted duck at Duck Duck Goose, Friday-night diners can also expect a raffle at each of the three restaurants. Alfred says details are still being finalized, but prizes might include giveaways from other local dining destinations and spa treatments.

“I think it’s going to be a fun night,” he adds. “The feedback online has been huge. It’ll be great to see that many people come together for a good cause.”

Ashish Alfred’s scars—at least the ones that are visible to the naked eye—are mostly healed over. “I used to cut myself,” he says, as he searches his arm to show off a scar. “You can’t see it much anymore, because I have it all covered up in tattoos—but it’s still there.”

After a moment of scanning, he finds what he’s looking for. There’s the scar tissue on his left forearm masked by a skull tattoo. In many ways, the scar—and others like it—is a metaphor for his life, as the once weeping wounds, made with a razor blade during a darker chapter of his life, have formed a patch of thickened keloid tissue. At that time in his life, he says, “I was very much trying to die, whether I was flat out trying to kill myself or just having no regard for my own health and safety whatsoever. It was really only by some miracle that I didn’t die.”

To the outside observer, with his good looks and three successful restaurants, including Duck Duck Goose in Fells Point and Bethesda, Alfred appears to be the picture of success. And he is a success story, though it’s been a long time coming.

Way back when he was being bullied on the playground—for being Indian, for being slight, for just being—the Silver Spring-born chef had to learn to stand up for himself.

“I had switched schools in the fourth grade because I was getting picked on and was starting to come undone,” he says. By middle school, the bullying started up again. “I was like ‘Fuck it,’” says the 33-year-old chef, whose friends call him Al. “If I’m going to get picked on, I’m going to fight back. I was very, very insecure, so any little thing would set me off.”

Alfred did not have it any easier at home. As a toddler, he playfully pounced on the chest of his alcoholic father, Rajesh, and was thrown to the ground, shattering his femur. In the aftermath, Alfred wore a body cast for months. His mother, Veena, did her best, but, as the primary breadwinner and owner a string of assisted living homes, she spent a fair amount of time away from home. Alfred recalls that “her moods revolved around whatever his mood was.”

“I remember my father being a nasty drunk as a child,” says Alfred. “I also remember him being nasty sober, too. When he wasn’t drinking, he was doing the white-knuckle thing. He was sitting there thinking about when he could drink again, so you could never be quiet enough or not move enough. My mom will say that I was a very good boy when I was little. She has said, ‘It’s almost like you knew to behave.’”

By contrast, in school, Alfred acted out. “I bought pot and starting drinking for the first time in eighth grade,” he says. “Being at home was misery and being at school was an escape from that.”

Alfred also carried a secret, which he’s just starting to grapple with and acknowledge now. “I was molested by a few different people growing up,” he says. “They weren’t family members. When it happened to me, I felt like it was my fault. I felt like I was doing something dirty that I wasn’t supposed to talk about, something wrong, so how dare I speak about it because I was part of it, too. But truth be told, I was 5, 6, 7 years old. What would I have known to say? If you carry around a bag of bricks on your right shoulder, your right shoulder is going to hurt after a while.”

The downward spiral continued into his adolescent years. To protect himself, Alfred projected a disaffected, don’t-mess-with-me persona. He’d get high and drunk and sneak out of class to smoke cigarettes. “I just didn’t want to do my homework or go to school,” he says. His surrogate family of friends was a bunch of other like-minded, self-destructive types. “All I had to do to stay with them was drink and party,” he says. “That’s where I learned to be violent—and then it didn’t matter that I was smaller. I figured out pretty quickly that that was a little bit of a family for me.”

After graduating from Magruder High School in Rockville 2005, he worked odd kitchen jobs between Washington, D.C., and Bethesda—bar back, bouncer, and barista—but was always focused on his next fix. He pawned his father’s Rolex to get drug money. Cocaine was his substance of choice. “Imagine going out and having four or five drinks and feeling buzzed,” he says. “Cocaine set me back to zero. Cocaine provided a sense of euphoria. It made it easier to consume more alcohol and take more Percocet—it was a numbing mission for me.”

His one source of solace and seemingly only diversion—beyond getting blitzed—was watching the Food Network. “I knew that my life was going to be in the service industry one way or the other,” he says. “That’s where I was happiest. I liked the hours. I liked the drinking. I liked the partying—I liked all of it.”

So, in 2008, after promising Veena that he would clean up his act, Alfred attended The French Culinary Institute in New York City. At the time, neither he, nor his family, understood the extent of his addiction.

“Cocaine provided a sense of euphoria. It made it easier to consume alcohol. It was a numbing mission.”

In his contemporary Canton townhome, Alfred engages in a game of fetch with Marco, his energetic Belgian Malinois pup, named for his idol, famed British chef Marco Pierre White. Sitting on a stylish cream linen chair at the dining room table, he’s surrounded by calming, neutral colors and inspirational artwork. (“Give thanks,” reads one that’s propped against the wall.) In hopes of helping others, Alfred is disarmingly open and honest as he talks about the havoc that drugs and alcohol wreaked on his life until he finally got sober on April 12, 2014.

On one particular binge while still a culinary student, he traveled to Ocean City and, in his words, got “yacked” out of his mind. “I finally pull up to my mother’s house at midnight, and she takes one look at me and is like, ‘You have to be at school in the morning.’” He stops for emphasis, just to be clear that what she’s asking of him seemed Sisyphean at the time. “It’s midnight,” he continues. “I’m at my mother’s house in Rockville, and my school is in Manhattan. She puts me in a taxi because if I wasn’t at school the next day, I would have failed. I’m doing blow in the taxi on the way to Union Station. I get to the train station, and I’m paranoid because I’m high and there’s Amtrak police all around—I dump the blow, so I’m coming down, which is miserable.”

The next day, Alfred actually made it to class, but his teacher allowed him to sleep it off in a nearby locker room so that he didn’t miss yet another class and get kicked out of school.

Alfred tells his tale with complete clarity, as if it happened just yesterday. The cocaine, he says, keeps you from blacking out, so you tend to remember everything. Whether purposely or not, he draws out his stories, recounts every detail, which allows time for the horror of what he’s saying to sink in. Every story is a well-told cautionary tale that leads the listener to the same inarguable conclusion: Don’t do drugs.

Despite his addiction, Alfred excelled in cooking school. He learned the classic techniques of Gallic gastronomy: how to clean a sauce and that when you make stock, 20 percent of the weight of your bones should be vegetables. “I was known as the guy who came in hungover or who missed a few too many days of classes,” he says, “but I was also known as the guy who could get shit done.”

After culinary school, he stayed in New York and worked at a range of restaurants, from the French-focused Daniel to the Italian-inspired Lupa. Still, his demons plagued him and he continued to use. By 2012, he was back in Bethesda, where he opened his first restaurant, 4935 Bar and Kitchen. Quickly, the place tanked because its chef’s addiction. A “nightmare” is how he describes himself at that time in his life.

Things hit rock bottom when, one night in April 2014, he shot up heroin with a prostitute. The evening ended with him falling on his face, breaking four teeth, robbing the safe of his own restaurant of $4,000 to buy more heroin, and then waking up the next morning to find that the woman—and his money—had vanished.

A week later, Veena, who had financed his restaurant, bought him a pack of cigarettes and drove him to Caron, a rehabilitation program in Pennsylvania. As he was being admitted, he dumped the bag of blow that was in his wallet, swallowed some random pills from his pocket, and then spent the next two days withdrawing in the detox room. “The feeling is indescribable,” he says of detoxing, “but I knew that I never wanted to feel like that again.”

It has been a little more than five years now, and Alfred is still sober.

As he stands at the pass in the kitchen at Duck Duck Goose, this work gives him a different kind of high.

In 2016, drawing upon his knowledge of French technique honed at cooking school, Alfred opened his first Duck Duck Goose brasserie in Bethesda. He also rebranded 4935 as George’s Chophouse (named after his late half-brother) in Bethesda. On the heels of its success, he opened a second Duck Duck Goose location in 2018 in Fells Point. With its innovative interpretations of French bistro fare and craft cocktails, it has quickly become a great alternative to a neighborhood known for its pubs and pizza joints. “I remember coming here when I was a kid and walking around the harbor with my family and then, as I got older, hanging out around Fells Point,” he says. “The bar business has always been very appealing to me—and nowhere is it more appealing than in Fells Point.”

Staying clean has helped him be a better chef. “Maybe it’s the gift of sobriety. I never feel like I have to put my ego on the plate,” he says. “There are a lot of young chefs who spend a lot of money and take a lot of time because they want to show the world that they can do this or that. It’s great for the guys who work really hard and they have their James Beards and their Michelin stars. But I want to be the guy whose restaurant you go to and you ate until you couldn’t eat anymore—I want the restaurants to be synonymous with a good time.”

His sobriety has had other upsides, too. “When I look at my food pictures, I can see the difference from the time I got sober,” he says as he scrolls through his Instagram account. “It’s been cool to see myself evolve as a cook. I feel like my food and my flavors got cleaner. My presentations got cleaner. I had a clear head—I could really think.”

Some days, he admits the cravings can still kick in. “Are there days when I want to go out and get [messed] up—absolutely,” he says. “Running a restaurant is hell. You go four, five, six days in a row where you’re struggling for plates and glassware and people are quitting right and left because the turnover is so high. You think you don’t want to have a drink after that? Yeah, you do.”

But regular check-ins with his appointed sponsor from Alcoholics Anonymous, a therapist to deal with ongoing dark thoughts and suicidal ideation, plus exercise and proper meals have helped. “I don’t allow myself to be angry or lonely, and I get as much rest as I need to get,” he says. “Sobriety is not that difficult. It really is a matter of doing the next right thing, sometimes minute to minute, hour to hour,” he says, speaking the language of AA.

His father, who was divorced from his mother in 2001, is now sober, too—and continues to rebuild his relationship with his son. “I’m not making excuses for him or trying to downplay it,” says Alfred, “but if I’ve ever known a man to make a turnaround, he has. I owe my sobriety to him. Every time I see him, he will say, ‘Look, I’m sorry.’ We have a beautiful relationship now.”

Last December, Alfred cooked at the prestigious James Beard House in New York City, with Veena by his side. The nine-course meal included halibut with scallop mousseline in puff pastry and Russian caviar and a duck terrine of foie gras with cherry gelée. “On my first day of culinary school they told us about the opportunities to volunteer at the James Beard House with well-known chefs, so to be cooking my own dinner there was humbling,” he says. In March, Alfred was nominated Best Chef by the Restaurant Association of Maryland.

Back in his own Duck Duck Goose kitchen in Fells during dinner service one late winter’s night, Alfred is in the zone as he inspects every plate that goes out with the seriousness of a TSA agent. He rearranges the agnolotti with pea purée into a star pattern, changes the crinkled bun on a rib-eye burger with foie gras (“This bread looks like shit,” he says to one of his line cooks), instructs his sous chef to remake a chocolate soufflé that has fallen, and tells the kitchen to soak the bone marrow in more milk. (“No one wants to eat blood,” he says, as he dabs at the blood on the bone.) He alternates between swearing at his kitchen staff and calling various members of his crew “sweetheart.” He’s also ever-aware that, although he’s had his struggles, he comes from a place of privilege, too. “What am I going to do, be an asshole because my staff didn’t go to culinary school?” he says. “You’ve got to show a little love.”

As he stands at the pass in the kitchen at Duck Duck Goose and receives a compliment from a customer who has stopped by to tell him that “everything was excellent,” this work gives him a different kind of high. “There’s nothing sexier to me than looking out into the dining room and the music is up and there’s a table of people doing their happy dance over the food. That’s what you get in the business for—that’s what 14-hour days are for.”

Telling his story has also been a part of his recovery. Alfred has lately learned to share his story publicly. In February, The Washington Post wrote a wrenching story on his past. He also revealed his story on The Today Show. The notoriety is new, and the media attention has set off an outpouring of strangers and people in the community emailing him to ask advice, share their struggles, or congratulate him on staying clean. “It’s almost strange being put on a pedestal,” says Alfred. “Some part of me wishes that I was getting all this attention for being a good chef, and a small part of me hates that I’m getting attention for the fact that I was a royal fuck-up.”

Back in the kitchen, a new, show-stopping soufflé appears about 30 minutes after the fallen one was sent back. This one rises inches high above the ramekin. It’s a crowning achievement, the true test of any French kitchen. As he spoons crème Anglaise over the top, it’s clear that all eyes are about to be on him. “See,” he says, looking at the soufflé. “Good things come to those who wait.”

Whether it’s paintings, fashion, gilded palaces, leggy women, or chiseled men, the French harbor an unapologetic appreciation for physical beauty. This is also the case when it comes to their food. Stylish plating is an art in and of itself in the world of French cuisine, an aesthetic Ashish Alfred has embraced at his fabulous new Fells Point brasserie, Duck Duck Goose.

Crab imperial with dark paddlefish caviar is served in a crab-shaped dish on black rocks in a white bowl. Plump scallops glisten atop a bright green mélange of Israeli couscous, parsnip purée, and apples. A streak of beet purée provides a striking stripe on a plate of roasted duck. Each dish is bursting with color, and most taste as good as they look.

The South Broadway restaurant is the second outpost of a concept that’s actually more broadly continental than strictly French. The first opened in Bethesda in 2016, and after a quick glance at the menu, we worried that it might not translate from the posh Montgomery County suburb to a neighborhood whose culinary sensibilities are a bit more casual. But those fears were eased the moment we walked in.

Housed in the former home of the late meatball eatery 8 Ball, Duck Duck Goose offers a sophisticated take on European cuisine without the accompanying pretense. While the layout is relatively unchanged—there’s an L-shaped bar, large common counter and lounge area in the main room, and a smattering of tables in the adjacent dining room—the décor is decidedly more fowl. Murals of geese dot the walls, and wooden ducks sit docilely behind the bar. Although he’s classically trained, having studied at the International Culinary Center in Manhattan, Alfred (who prefers to be called “Al”) doesn’t want the atmosphere to be stuffy. Hence, the eclectic selection of rather loud music, ranging from jazz to pop to club, playing on the nights we visited.

Wearing a backward baseball hat, and with an easygoing manner, our bartender, Tim, added to the casual vibe. On both our visits, he took great time and care preparing our cocktails, all of which are cleverly conceived—and named. The Duck L’Orange, made with bourbon, Grand Marnier, and maple simple syrup, packs a punch, yet goes down smooth. Le Vie en Rose (“life through rose-colored glasses”) combines vodka, raspberry liquor, lemon, and champagne for a not-too-sweet thirst-quenching treat. While we waited for our food, Tim gave us a sample of the restaurant’s house-infused banana Jameson, served on the rocks. It’s surprisingly bite-free and would make for a good before- or after-dinner drink.

The menu, divided into six smalls, four shares, and seven mains, can be intimidating to those unfamiliar with French fare, yet Alfred’s preparation makes the food we tried extremely accessible. We started with the roasted Japanese eggplant, a long strip of the vegetable topped with lemon yogurt, pistachios, and peppers that add a spicy kick. No disrespect to what followed, but it might have been the tastiest dish of the night. The cauliflower steak, a mixture of charred, puréed, and pickled forms of the veggie, offered a panoply of colors and flavors.

Surpassing our sky-high expectations, the honey-roasted duck was among the best we’ve ever had. A tender breast, cut into two tender strips and cooked medium-rare, was rich and only enhanced by the cherry reduction and glazed beets. Tournedos, a center-cut filet topped with foie gras in a red wine jus, was prepared medium-rare at our server’s suggestion. It emerged from the kitchen more rare than medium, the perfect preparation for such a high-quality piece of meat. Halibut, four pieces each wrapped in puff pastry, was perhaps the most inventive dish we tried, and while it was certainly good, the fish was a bit overpowered by the breading.

The best entrée we ate—shockingly—was one we rarely order at restaurants: the roasted chicken. But Alfred’s version, inspired by and named for Marc Forgione of Iron Chef, is impossibly juicy. Served with spicy broccolini, confit potatoes, and charred lemon, it’s worth every cent of its $24 cost.

There will be some who are scared off by Duck Duck Goose’s seemingly exotic menu or high pricing structure. To unadventurous eaters, we say there’s no need to order bone marrow or the Cote de Boeuf—a $95, 36-ounce bone-in ribeye for two. Simple dishes such as risotto, filet, and, of course, chicken are as pleasing to the palate as they are to the eye. At Duck Duck Goose, that’s saying a lot.

DUCK DUCK GOOSE 814 S. Broadway, Fells Point, 443-869-2129. HOURS Brunch: Sat.-Sun. 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; dinner: Tues.-Sun. 5-10 p.m.; bar: Tues.-Sun. 4 p.m.-1 a.m. PRICES Appetizers: $6-21; small plates: $13-16; entrees: $18-95. AMBIANCE Hunt country chic.