On March 16, when Orto owner Elan Kotz learned that bars and restaurants would be closing with the exception of carryout and delivery, he was on-site working at his new project to bring back The Dizz in Remington.

“When we got the news, we immediately had to pivot into, ‘What were we going to do at Orto?’” says Kotz. “That Monday, I got with the team and my brand new executive chef, Chris Audia, and I just decided, ‘Let’s do this thing.’ He and I ran the phones and he cooked and packaged every meal for our first carryout—and it was a great night. It was a very humbling and beautiful experience. It was really hard work, but it was satisfying to know that we were still able to feed our guests.”

Kotz is confident that diners will be ever eager to eat out once restaurants reopen. “Whether your restaurant is big, medium-sized, or small, every restaurant has a soul and a heart,” he says, “and guests who have become family will come back to support them.”

How are you?
I’m doing well. Every day is a new adventure. Each day presents its own challenges, but at the same time, I am super grateful that we are able to feed our guests and provide work for a portion of our team.

It seems like you’ve mastered the carryout format—I’ve had it myself and it’s excellent. You’ve told me that you even have “carryout regulars.” Why do you think you’ve been so successful?
I really attribute a lot of the success of this to our team. Chris Audia, our sous chef Kris Calivo, and our pastry chef Theresa Louis—Chris Audia’s wife. My GM and I focused on the front-of-the-house logistics and packaging. For us, the most important part was sticking to our guns and cooking the food that we’ve always cooked. We offer a chicken parm family meal to make people feel comforted and warm them up, but we’re also still offering the dishes we love to provide to our guests. We are just cooking what we know, and the response has been incredible.

“Orto is a very small, intimate space that feels really cozy, but are people going to want to sit close to each other? When are we going to be able to do that? What does the timeline look like? Those question marks are why it’s been really hard to make any sort of a real plan.” —Elan Kotz

Tell me more about your new chef.
Chris was our opening sous chef and he went to Chez Hugo for a little while. He and Theresa, who was also at Chez Hugo, started back with us on March 4. We had one week of solid time working together, and then they were confronted with the challenge of the global pandemic—they’ve handled it beautifully.

How are your revenues?
Our revenue is down about 50 percent now from where we were because we’ve moved to a five-day week. The weekdays have been inconsistent, but weekends are holding us up. We reduced our labor and are mindful about purchasing. We’ve been able to make it work—some weeks we were able to break even. In the beginning there were some hard weeks, but we’ve really hit a good rhythm.

What has it been like to be in the space without most of your staff and no guests?
Every day is different. March 17th was one of the hardest days of my life and career. I had to lay off a large portion of our staff and that was a really, really tough day for me.

It took us a while to readjust all lights, which are on automatic settings and dim throughout the evening. The first time the lights dimmed on that Tuesday, March 17th at 10 of five, letting us know that we were five minutes out from opening, it was an incredibly emotional thing for all of us. And then, that first Saturday night being in that space, the same space that we’ve served so many incredible people and made memories and had this beautiful food on the table, it was 8:15 p.m. and we had pushed out all of our catering. We didn’t have any more orders—I looked at everyone and was like, ‘This would be our biggest push right now.’

“The first time the lights dimmed on that Tuesday, March 17th at 10 of five, letting us know that we were five minutes out from opening, it was an incredibly emotional thing for all of us.” —Elan Kotz

What do you recommend for first timers taking out?
The chicken Parm dinner has been a hit for tons of guests. It’s served over house-made rigatoni with garlic buns that Theresa makes, a Caesar salad, and a revolving dessert. For two people, it’s $40. We are trying to deliver value, as well as comfort. Also, we have revolving batch cocktails. My go-to is a black Manhattan that we do with an Averna Amaro instead of the vermouth. We also just added little after-dinner drinks—three ounce pours of house-made limoncello orangecello, and grapefruit pompicello—which have always been part of our experience here. We’re also adding a cheese and salumi plate and a grilled swordfish loin with fregola and mussels.

How does your chef stay inspired?
We did have to turn into a carryout model overnight. We are joking internally that when we get through this thing, we are going to wear matching track suits and get patches that say, ‘1,000 chicken Parms served!’ It’s delicious, but it’s not the most technical thing to make. Chef is still inspired to cook seasonally, seeing the ingredients that have been available and getting inspired from there. Last week we rolled out a new lamb sugo pasta dish.

What’s happening with your project to bring The Dizz back in Remington?
In this current climate, I did just put it on hold. I started the project 11 days before the coronavirus hit. For now, I am slowly picking it up, but I don’t have a sense of a timeline yet. In the first 11 days of working there, we got everything off the walls and started cleaning.

What will the culinary landscape look like when the pandemic is over?

I don’t think any of us know what this looks like on the other side. Every restaurant is unique. Orto is a very small space and it’s intimate and feels really cozy, but are people going to want to sit close to each other? When are we going to be able to do that? What does the timeline look like? What does the rollout look like? Those question marks are why it’s been really hard to make any sort of a real plan. We’re taking it day by day, week by week.

I don’t think it’s going to go right back to what it was at all for a while, and I do think restaurants will have to continue to do carryout as part of their regular offerings just to ensure that they are making it work and making ends meet. I want to do a hybrid restaurant once we are able to.

“We cannot wait to serve people back at a restaurant table—that will be one of the very best days.” —Elan Kotz

What changes do you think will happen as a result of the pandemic?
I know there will be changes as it pertains to how people want to be served. There will be touchless bathrooms and a forever focus on everything cleanliness, which we’ve always done, but now it has to be even more visible and transparent for the comfort level of our guests. I believe we will still have restaurants to eat out in, although things might change a bit—they will have to for a while. But can we tell what the future holds? Absolutely not. Is there a chance that we have to pivot again? Maybe. Some iconic restaurants may never reopen.

There’s also a massive cost associated with a restaurant reopening. You have to restock everything. A lot of it will come down to the diner and their comfort level and ability. There’s also an economic implication. People need to have the money to eat out. I’m hopeful. I’m an eternal optimist. I know this will be just fine and we will get to the other side and be stronger for it. And hopefully a lot more grateful.

Why do restaurants matter?
Restaurants matter for multiple reasons. They’re a place where people who love to give and nourish can work, whether they’re a bartender, a cook, or a dishwasher. There’s this built-in feeling of giving to people when they come in and dine here. It’s a social gathering—people love to connect over food. Food memories are made in restaurants over birthdays and special occasions, but eating out is also a thing to do when you’ve had a hard day at work and don’t want to go home and cook something. Also, for me, we employ so many incredible human beings who’ve built their careers and spent their lives in restaurants, and they matter because we have to make sure that all these people have somewhere to go on the other side of this thing. We cannot wait to serve people back at a restaurant table—that will be one of the very best days.

Elan Kotz helped open The Food Market in 2012 but has been out of the business of running a restaurant for about four years now. Kotz took a break from the industry to develop a travel/dining app, but he’s more than happy to be back in the thick of things with his new spot, Orto, in Station North.

“I didn’t realize how much I really missed it,” he says. “Being back in the business has been awesome. There are some voids in the market—just because we’re in Baltimore doesn’t mean that people don’t love to eat good food.”

We got a chance to talk to Kotz about his new restaurant venture, its early success, and the impact he hopes Orto has on the neighborhood.

How did Orto come to occupy the Bottega/Colette space near The Charles Theatre? I know that you were friends with the owner Adrien Aeschliman.
Adrien brought me in to consult on a few things. He was moving to Cleveland where his wife is from and had gotten a job and his plan was to fly back and forth while running Bottega. After exploring that for a bit, he decided to pursue other opportunities in Cleveland.

Did you think about keeping it as Bottega?
We wanted to do full branding and a full concept—I didn’t want to pick up anyone’s dirty laundry. So we changed the name and the menu, though not the whole concept. It’s still Italian inspired. I do think that there’s a big void for approachable, Italian-inspired fare. We also kept as many of the employees as possible. The chef, Stefano Porcile, was the chef at little Bottega, as we call it, when it was on Maryland Avenue.

What was your menu mission?
We wanted to reinvent the space and the menu. We didn’t lean to Bottega for anything other than the fact that they were one of the restaurants in the city doing delicious homemade pastas. With Orto, meaning vegetable garden, I wanted to move to the lighter side of Italian cooking and highlight delicious fresh ingredients prepared simply—that to me is what Italian cooking is all about. As the season changes and produce starts hitting and farmers bring in delicious proteins, we will focus more on that the vegetable side of things, the lighter side of things.

What did you decide to do with the décor?

The main goal was to lighten the space, more from a color palette than a lighting perspective. Bottega was really dark. I like the coziness of dim lights and candles. In Bottega, in the salon area near the bar, the bottom half of the walls was high gloss black and above the chair rail was a darker green—that made that whole space feel really tight. We changed it to a warm green on the bottom and added a plaster treatment on the top to make the space feel young and fresh with a focus on natural materials all inside a 100-year-old building.

Any other aesthetic changes?

The most important design aspect for me is that I lowered the bar and changed it from being a standing bar to a bar where people can sit and have a meal. I personally love to eat at a bar—you can have the same meal in the same space. You can come in and have something small or have a three-course meal at the bar.

Speaking of the bar, you just got your liquor license. Tell me about your bar program.

The wine program will be very much Italian with New World stuff, not only Italian wine, but value-driven wine that will pair beautifully with our menu—whites, reds, bubbles by the glass and bottle. We are also going to offer a tight beer program of four drafts, most notably Peroni on draft and local beers and ciders, as well a cocktail program that we are still developing. We have Lindsay Crisler, who is very talented when comes to bar programing. Lindsay worked at Woodberry Kitchen for a while. She is focused on utilizing local ingredients and herbs, as well as homemade tinctures and syrups. We will have some riffs on classic cocktails. We are trying to have delicious cocktails that add to the entire dining experience and are developing digestivos and amaros for dessert.

How did you come up with the name Orto?

I knew that I wanted to focus on the lighter side of Italian cooking. I have a cousin who lives in Milan. For a time, we thought it should it be a woman’s name—we were looking at Leila or Lily—or someone’s name so that it has that homey feel. I went back and forth on it and the name may have actually come from Lindsay. I like the ring of it. It’s short and memorable. When I found out the meaning, I loved the story that it could tell for the restaurant.

Any other upcoming plans as you evolve?

We will be adding a brunch in the near future and we will also be doing some cool programming for happy hour and late night.

One month in and the line is already out the door.

We are so grateful—the response has been phenomenal. It’s interesting to say that we have regulars when we’re not even open for a month, but we do. I think it’s a testament to a cozy space that doesn’t take itself too seriously—you can come in tonight and have an arugula salad or mussels and come in and do three or four courses and a bottle of Brunello.

What can be done to improve the scene?

The people in Baltimore really do love good food and want to support it, but it’s hard because a lot of diners are coming in from the county on the weekends. The city has had a tough run over the past few years and scared people off. Along with that, some operators have been apprehensive, asking themselves, ‘Is this the right location?’ It’s a big undertaking and putting a lot on the line.

People need to continue to invest in certain neighborhoods. Some people love Hampden or Butchers Hill or where have you. It’s important to have more mass—I love that we’re next to Tapas Teatro and Penn & Quill, to have that synergy is really special. We have a really strong culture here [in Station North]. Will and Rosemary at Le Comptoir du Vin recently went on vacation for a week and put a sign on the door of their restaurant, which is around the block, telling everyone to come here.