Just three months after restaurateur Robbin Haas shuttered his neighborhood restaurant The Nickel Taphouse in Mt. Washington due to financial struggles, the chef has also closed Encantada, his whimsical brainchild on the third floor of the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) in Federal Hill.

“You always have to look at the glass as half full,” Haas recently told us, in response to the rampant restaurant closures throughout the city. “Last year was a tough year, but every year can be kind of tough. You just have to keep pushing along and hopefully you do the right thing to get your customer count where it’s supposed to be.”

After four years, Haas and museum officials made the decision to close the restaurant to make way for another operator to take over the space. Though details have not yet been announced, the new concept is expected to emerge in the coming weeks.

“The third-floor restaurant space was always conceived as an extension of the spirit and visual delights found throughout our museum,” AVAM’s founder and director Rebecca Hoffberger said in a statement provided to Baltimore. “It’s literally a place to sit with people you love, ‘digest’ your visitor experience, and have fun immersed in deliciousness.”

With its fanciful fabrics, church pew seating, and Tim Burton aesthetic, Encantada was known for its modern design and outdoor patio overlooking the museum’s landmark whirligig by the late farmer and visionary artist Vollis Simpson.

“We dedicated our cafe to our beloved Baltimore farmer and master whirligig maker, and his wife, Jean,” Hoffberger adds. “It’s a perfect place to sit, drink, and watch it dance in the wind.”

In addition to the views, the spot was known for its contemporary takes on classic vegetable dishes—ranging from kale salads and crispy barbecue chickpeas to deviled turnips and Nashville cauliflower with vegan ranch. The bar also turned out colorful cocktails like the mesmerizing Cheshire Cat that changed hues as you drank it.

For now, diners can experience Haas’ locally sourced fare at Birroteca, his Italian-influenced spot in Hampden. Though it’s his only city restaurant left standing, Haas remains optimistic about the future.

“I’m excited about being in Baltimore—and I’m going to open more restaurants,” he told us earlier this month. “I’m not done. I’m just glad to be moving in a forward direction.”

This month’s Baltimore Restaurant Week is going to be a bit different for chef Donna Crivello, who shuttered her 19-year-old neighborhood outpost Donna’s Cafe in the Village of Cross Keys last month. Instead of overseeing two kitchens during the annual dining-out promotion, she is now solely focused on her work at rustic Italian spot Cosima inside Woodberry’s Mill No. 1.

“I have so many mixed emotions about closing Donna’s,” Crivello says. “It was the end of an era for us. But moving forward, it’s nice that I have a lot more time to spend at Cosima.”

Though Donna’s was one of last year’s record-high restaurant closures—among others including Aggio, Parts & Labor, and Wit & Wisdom—the industry is ready to wipe the slate clean. And Baltimore Restaurant Week, which returns January 11-20, will kick off the year on a high note.

“I always like to look at the glass half full,” says chef Robbin Haas, who closed The Nickel Taphouse in Mt. Washington due to financial struggles last October. “Even though there may have been some setbacks, you still have to keep moving ahead. And Restaurant Week is a way to really bring some energy into the restaurants.”

Haas remains a partner at Birroteca in Hampden and Encantada at the American Visionary Art Museum in Federal Hill. Both spots will be participating in Restaurant Week, which offers multi-course lunch and dinner menus at fixed price points ranging from $12-35. The idea behind the winter promotion is to generate business during a season that is notoriously slower for the dining scene.

“You have this natural doldrum after the holidays where people are not going out because they’re watching their weight or their credit card bill,” says Steven Rivelis, co-owner of The Elephant in Mt. Vernon. “It’s a great opportunity to reset things and start them in a positive way.”

Though the dining deal makes it easy to explore restaurants in unfamiliar neighborhoods, Rivelis also stresses the importance of supporting the spots in your own backyard.

“Businesses need our neighbors,” he says. “And neighbors need the businesses, or else you don’t have a thriving community. It’s a reciprocal responsibility, and I think Restaurant Week provides an opportunity for folks to get out and spend money in their own city.”

Crivello agrees, mentioning that Cosima typically sees a spike in reservations throughout the event: “It’s a real boost for January sales,” she says. “If you can get 11 really good days, it makes a huge difference.”

While some might be quick to pass on Restaurant Week because of the increased crowds or limited menu, Crivello assures that most teams anticipate the high demand and plan ahead.

“I think that’s part of the fun of Restaurant Week—that’s it’s always busy and energetic,” she says. “Most of us who run restaurants streamline things so that you’re not going to have to wait a long time.”

From a chef’s perspective, Haas says that the week gives him a chance showcase highlights on the regular menu. Birroteca will feature the signature mushroom bolognese cavatelli and burrata bruschetta, while Encantada will offer dishes like crispy Brussels sprouts and steak frites with onion butter.

“Sometimes some of our dishes get lost in translation a little bit,” he says. “So the Restaurant Week menu is something that we have a lot of fun with.”

Rivelis is looking forward to debuting a few new items, including a lemon-caper chicken with house-made fettuccine and herb butter sauce, which will remain on The Elephant’s worldly menu even after Restaurant Week ends.

As for Crivello, her special prix-fixe features ricotta meatballs, butternut squash soup, roasted pork belly, and the signature spit-roasted chicken with roasted vegetables and saffron couscous. Overall, she hopes that the upcoming event ignites diners to support the industry as a whole.

“When Donna’s closed, I had a lot of people say to me, ‘Well I guess I didn’t come often enough,’” recalls Crivello. “You don’t want people to feel bad, but it’s true. You have to get out and support the places that you like, and visit the places that you haven’t been yet. Our city needs that energy.”

The first time Neill Howell stopped by Banksy’s Cafe to get a bite to eat was also the last time. “It took 25 minutes to get a simple sandwich,” he recalls. In a twist of fate, though, when he and his wife, Emily, moved away from her hometown of Baltimore then returned in 2011, Howell again found himself standing in the space—not to eat at Banksy’s, which had closed, but to consider renting the location for a cafe concept of his own. Although the spot at the corner of Falls Road and Lake Avenue had changed hands a few times through the years—from Glas Z Café through to Banksy’s—Neill and Emily weren’t daunted.

“I never thought of this spot as being cursed,” says Howell of The Corner Pantry, his now-two-year-old British-influenced cafe, though he knew that was the talk at the time. “I have to admit that in the beginning, there were days when we’d see tons of cars going up Falls Road, and yet it would be empty in here. And I would wonder.”

Opening a restaurant is risky business under any circumstances. In a typical year, about 60,000 restaurants open and 50,000 close, according to the National Restaurant Association (though restaurants close for many reasons and that number can’t be attributed completely to failures). Restaurateur Robbin Haas, co-owner of Birroteca, The Nickel Taphouse, and Encantada, sums up the obstacles like this: “Opening a restaurant is like getting a root canal with no anesthesia.”

Ned Atwater has had his share of pain. When he opened a stall in July 2010 inside the Annapolis Market House, the historic structure with throngs of tourists, water views, and old-town charm seemed like the ideal locale for his soup-and-sandwich cafe concept. But despite his rapidly expanding empire, with six outlets to date, the harborside space never took off. By December 2011, after trying to stick it out, Atwater decided to pull the plug. “We went in during one of the many attempts to revitalize,” says Atwater. “From a distance, it seemed like a perfect fit, but there was just something about it—restaurant owners do have their superstitions about things.”

Some industry experts pooh-pooh the concept of a hex. “There’s no such thing as a cursed space,” says Pierpoint’s Nancy Longo, who has had a restaurant in Fells Point for 27 years. “But what can happen is that the demographics of a neighborhood change and people stop going to a particular place.”

Once there’s a perception that a place is “cursed,” however, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. “There’s a halo effect that can occur—and it’s hard to overcome that,” theorizes industry consultant Dean Haskell, a founder of National Retail Concept Partners. “There are a lot of variables that restaurant locations need before a successful one is chosen, and sometimes, for the sake of price, restaurateurs will choose a less-than-optimal site and it will get a reputation as being a bad site for a restaurant.”

So why do some restaurants succeed while others flop?

Restaurant and hospitality consultant Arlene Spiegel of Arlene Spiegel & Associates works with restaurants across the country, including Grillfire at The Hotel at Arundel Preserve in Hanover. She says what’s critical to opening a successful eatery is to try to “understand the demographics and the psychographics of the population you’re trying to attract.

“Opening a restaurant is like getting a root canal with no anesthesia.”

“Whether there’s a failed restaurant in the space or a from-scratch, brand new build-out, it’s important to figure out the people you are serving,” she says. “What has worked and what hasn’t worked, and why? If you’re a doughnut and coffee shop, for example, are you on the right side of the highway? Is there a burning void for great bagels and pastrami that no one else is doing that will have people going out of their way because you’re the only one doing it in an authentic way? In cities, in particular, where there’s competition and occupancy costs are high, there are always some that will do well even on the same block where others are going to fail.”

Bottom line, says Spiegel: “There really aren’t any bad locations, there are just bad fits.”

That said, it doesn’t take a degree from the Culinary Institute of America to know that bad parking, a flawed concept, or poor location can lead to the demise of a restaurant. But other times, the reasons can be harder to explain.

Case in point: the Hess Shoes store in Belvedere Square. For generations, customers flocked to Hess Shoes for its hair “snippery” and sliding board. But transforming the space into a restaurant concept has yet to work. (The verdict is still out on The Starlite Diner, which had yet to open at press time.) After Belvedere Square was redeveloped, Taste opened there in 2004, followed by Crush in 2008, which met its demise in 2012. Even the James Beard-winning Spike Gjerde couldn’t make a go of the space with Shoo-Fly Diner, which opened in October 2013 and had served its last order of “hush doggies” by May 2015.

“That place has been tough,” observes Atwater, who has a cafe in Belvedere Square that has taken over much of the shopping center. “You might say that its soul was that old Hess shoe store and that changing the concept was too much. That place was an institution in that neighborhood. When you were a kid, you’d go there to get your really cool sneakers when you turned 12. People still miss it. It’s like a wound that takes time to heal.”

Spike’s brother, Charlie, is no stranger to restaurant spots with a spell. In his 25 years as a restaurateur, Gjerde has owned and operated many eateries. “When we opened Spike & Charlie’s, we heard that it was a cursed location, a cursed corner,” recalls Charlie. “Before Spike & Charlie’s, it had been like three things—Ethel’s Place, Blue’s Alley, a reggae bar—and none of them stayed opened for very long.” Spike & Charlie’s, on the other hand, remained in business for 13 years, closing only when Charlie decided he wanted a break in 2004. And though the spell seemed to be broken, the so-called “curse” started all over again after the closing of Spike & Charlie’s, with 23rd Degree Restaurant & Wine Bar, Robert Oliver Seafood, and Mari Luna having notably short runs. (Ryleigh’s Oyster is there now and seems to be thriving.)

“There’s a formula to running a restaurant,” believes Charlie, who now co-owns Papi’s Tacos and Alexander’s Tavern in Fells Point, as well as Huck’s American Craft in Brewers Hill. “But there’s also this intangible element that plays into that formula. Most of it I know—location, parking, good food, good service. But that last piece I don’t.”

About 60,000 restaurants open in the U.S. each year and 50,000 close.

Gjerde’s Papi’s, which opened in March 2014, is at another supposedly troubled spot. Prior to Papi’s, the taco joint was a few different bar-restaurants. Before becoming Papi’s, business was so bad at J.A. Murphy’s that it was featured on Spike TV’s Bar Rescue. Even with the advice, some sprucing up, and a name change to Murphy’s Law, the Fells Point place shuttered its doors only a few months after the makeover. Yet, with Papi’s, Gjerde has had a hit on his hands.

“That’s my best restaurant,” he says. And while he believes the reasonable price points and popular DIY tacos concept help explain the success, Gjerde says that’s not the whole story. Sheer serendipity has also been a factor. “Kevin Spacey [who films in Fells for House of Cards] latched onto us and came in several times,” says Gjerde. “You go into a little restaurant like Papi’s and see Kevin Spacey, and business really starts to build. You can’t plan for that.”

Other area long-suffering spots also seem to have found more permanent tenants. To wit: Birroteca, which was the dank and dingy Kolper’s Restaurant & Tavern (the site of a double stabbing in 2009, no less), then the short-lived Mill Steakhouse before Haas opened his brewpub there. He got a good deal because the space sat empty for a long time. “I didn’t know anything about the history of the spot when I came from Miami,” says Haas. “I was like, ‘This is great. We will get it for next to nothing.’” Haas’s ignorance-is-bliss approach has worked in his favor. “The equivalent would be that you bought a house in Guilford, and it’s a 100-year-old home, and someone died in there 50 years ago,” says Haas. “You might not know. I’m not freaked out about stuff like that—the past is past.”

That’s been true for The Corner Pantry as well. One Monday morning, it’s clear that the curse—if there ever was one—has been broken, as patrons queue up for Cornish pasties. The dark, unappealing space that once was is long gone. Emily Howell, who helped redesign the area into a light-filled bakery, carries plates of the cafe’s signature “pop tarts” from the kitchen. “Before this, nothing lasted,” says Howell. “We transformed it.”

For now, the verdict is still out on Haas’s newest restaurant, which has also opened in a long unsuccessful location. Back when Joy America Café opened at the American Visionary Art Museum in 1998, it was highly hailed. (“Run—don’t walk,” said then Sun dining critic Elizabeth Large.) By 2006, it had run its course. Three years later, Mr. Rain’s Fun House tried to make a go of it, but in 2014, it, too, served its final meal. In July 2015, Haas moved in with Encantada. “It’s a tough space,” he says. “It’s a work in progress.”

But Haas is not concerned about a curse. “I’m not spooked at all,” he says. “I had a black cat. I walk under ladders. As long as you don’t drop a paint can on me, I’m just fine.”

If the term “museum restaurant” conjures up images of cafeteria trays and tired salad bars, let go of what you know. From The Modern—Danny Meyer’s Bauhaus restaurant inside the Museum of Modern Art—to restaurateur Ralph Brennan’s quick bites bistro Café NOMA inside the New Orleans Museum of Art, a new day is dawning at cultural institutions across the country. With the opening of Encantada, set inside the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM), restaurateur Robbin Haas is hoping to make his mark.

Like the visionary artists whose works are displayed in the museum, Haas, who also owns Birroteca and The Nickel Taphouse, has a unique vision, a veggie-themed fantasy that taps into the trend of vegetables as the new meat. (Close your eyes and you’ll find that the fried cauliflower dabbed in house-made buffalo sauce is as satisfying as any piece of protein.) And while the theme of Encantada, which means “enchanted” in Spanish, highlights locally sourced, plant-centric plates, the menu, designed by former Birroteca executive chef Melanie Molinaro, is not strictly vegetarian or vegan. Also, know before you go that dishes come and go with the seasons.

On our first visit, a gorgeous September evening, my companions and I were seated on the terrace with its spectacular views of Federal Hill and Vollis Simpson’s gargantuan whirligig seemingly within arm’s reach. The entire space, which includes a 64-seat dining room with church-pew seating evokes a Tim Burton set piece with its fanciful Suzani fabrics and works by visionary artists such as Deepak Chowdhury and Mary Proctor on the walls. The space is the artful expression of Haas and AVAM founder Rebecca Hoffberger,
who closely collaborated on the design. And while the interior is extraordinary, the kitchen still has some kinks.

The entire space evokes a Tim Burton set piece with church-pew seating and fanciful fabrics.

As we moved into our meal, we sampled an array of small plates, including fried chickpeas seasoned with house-made barbecue sauce (a crispy and light play on barbecued chips), house-made honey wheat bread with fig jam (sadly not much better than what comes out of my own bread machine), and a dish of “deviled” turnips with puréed chickpeas and tofu as a stand-in for eggs.

While I appreciated that this dish dared to be different, and the stuffed turnip successfully mimicked a deviled egg in looks and taste, the texture was a bit crunchy, and I found myself craving the real deal. Still, vegans will likely find this non-dairy option an appealing alternative. More noteworthy noshes included a creamy house-made burrata paired with grilled peaches and English peas and an heirloom tomato salad brightened by black garlic purée and a sprinkle of sea salt. The tomatoes were flecked with olive-oil powder—olive oil mixed with maltodextrin—which is meant to deliver a concentrated flavor as it melts in the mouth. I found it more distracting than delicious.

While veggies are the focus, there are several offerings that include small pieces of protein, and this is where the menu really shone. High praise goes to a postmodern-looking plate of wagyu accompanied by beets prepared three ways (roasted, pureed, powdered). Although the veggies—including a divine demi-glaze fashioned from puréed beets, black garlic, thyme, and shallots—were central to the plate, the accompanying meat was ultra tender, and we loved the addition of horseradish cream, which delivered depth and a hint of heat. Also on the plate were flash-fried Brussels sprouts, which echoed the sweetness of the beets. With the arrival of every dish, as carefully curated as a work of art, the wow factor was high, and each plate earned an A-plus for originality, including desserts. (Behold the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, a cross between chocolate pudding and gananche with a blanket of edible gold leaf.)

A week later, a lunchtime visit was more seamless. The daytime menu features some dinner dishes, but also fare unique to the midday meal. We appreciated the inclusion of a Roseda beef burger for the carnivore at the table and forged ahead with a tasty, though overdressed, panzenella salad. But the real menu masterpiece was a heavenly bowl of bacon and lemongrass dashi with ramen noodles, crispy pork belly, and a soft-boiled egg that convinced me that this newcomer needs time to grow. The broth and springy miso-infused noodles imparted a riot of umami, and the tender pork belly, slow-cooked over seven hours, was smoky and deeply flavorful. Days later, we were still reminiscing.

As every artist knows—including AVAM’s Wayne Kusy, who took years to build a 25-foot ship out of toothpicks—inspiration takes time. Haas certainly has his work cut out for him. To date, no other restaurants, including Spike and Charlie Gjerde’s Joy America Café, have succeeded in the space. Even so, we’re rooting for Encantada. As the restaurant continues to work its charms, we’re eager to see what happens next.

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ENCANTADA 800 Key Highway, 410-752-1000.
HOURS Wed.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun. 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
PRICES Starters: $5-14; entrees: $11-21; desserts: $6-9.
ATMOSPHERE Artsy.

Dressed in a sweat-soaked gray T-shirt, blue plaid shorts, and red Croc-like chef shoes, Robbin Haas is rendering fat from duck breasts. In another pot on the 12-burner stove in the kitchen of Encantada, his new “vegetable-centric” restaurant on the third floor of the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM), buckwheat gnocchi boils away. Nearby, line cooks are busy plopping slices of jalapeño peppers on chunks of yellow watermelon, as racks of pork belly, zucchini, and chanterelles await broiling, roasting, and sautéing. “Did anyone bring up the ice water for the radishes yet?” Haas shouts to no one in particular. “We need to make them sparkle.” Then, to a line cook, “Cut these fennel bulbs in fours. Neatness counts! That’s right, everything you learned in kindergarten applies in the kitchen as well.”

Haas isn’t normally behind the stove these days. At 60 years old, his chef-ing days are mostly a thing of the past. He’s a restaurateur now, the operator of four restaurants in the area—The Nickel Taphouse in Mt. Washington, Birroteca in Hampden and Bel Air, and now Encantada.

But Haas—who as a hard-partying, thirtysomething cook in Miami helped define Southern Florida cuisine and was named one of the best new chefs in America by Food & Wine in the process—glides back behind the stove as if he never left. “He tries to find any excuse to get in the kitchen,” says Melanie Molinaro, Encantada’s 24-year-old executive chef. “It’s just who he is.”

Haas has enjoyed enormous success with his other restaurants, which have become stalwarts of the county and city dining scenes. Three years after its 2011 opening, Birroteca’s original location in Hampden still draws crowds for its chalkboard full of craft beers and duck-confit pizzas, while The Nickel Taphouse, an upscale take on the working-class pubs in Haas’s native Buffalo, NY, has been luring some regulars away from the neighboring Mt. Washington Tavern.

With Encantada (which means “enchanted”), he knows the stakes are higher and the risk is greater. The restaurant is sited in a very visible building, but its top-floor, tucked-away location makes it out-of-sight, out-of-mind for many looking for a night on the town. For Encantada to have staying power, Haas knows he must attract both museum visitors and, more importantly, a core of regulars from the neighborhood and beyond. And will diners pay in the double digits for a plate of cauliflower?

Since opening on July 1—Molinaro’s birthday—early reviews of Encantada have been strong, and Haas says things are coming along. But business also looked rosy at first for the building’s previous tenants. In its early years, the space went through several incarnations most notably as Joy America Cafe, with now-James Beard Award-winning Spike Gjerde and his brother, Charlie, running the show. More recently, Mr. Rain’s Fun House limped along for five years, serving contemporary cuisine and some of the most creative cocktails in town, but rolled its last lumpia last summer. “Even with wonderful press . . . our pursuit of culinary excellence was not rewarded with the business we expected,” read a statement from the restaurant upon its closing.

Haas was named one of the best new chefs in America by Food & Wine.

Haas is well aware of the location’s up-and-down history, but this is a guy who seems to have a knack for taking on challenging spaces and forcing them to work. The Nickel Taphouse housed a string of short-lived restaurants and businesses. Birroteca, in Bel Air, was home to a nondescript Bill Bateman’s, while the original Birroteca, located in a no-man’s land along Clipper Mill Road, was infamously the site of a double stabbing back in 2009, when it was known as Kolper’s. Even the restaurant’s name was a risk. “I wanted to name it Birroteca and people told me nobody knows what that means,” says Haas. “Now I look on the Internet and there are like 35 birrotecas.

“Look, I’m not afraid of challenging spaces,” he continues. “AVAM is going to be challenging, but it’ll have its concept in its favor. There’s not another restaurant like it in Baltimore.”

Robbin Haas has spent nearly his entire life in restaurants. Before he was 10, he was scrubbing dishes at small hotel restaurant where his mother, sister, and brother also worked. He spent a good part of his teen years and early 20s at a big Italian eatery toiling for a man named Russell Salvatore, a no-nonsense, hard-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside taskmaster, who fired (and rehired) Haas as often as the menu changed. But Haas says he picked up nearly everything he knows about the restaurant business from Salvatore: the importance of good service, how to treat your staff, the proper way to run a kitchen. “He was the best restaurateur I ever worked for,” he says.

During his late 20s and 30s, Haas crisscrossed the country cooking for a series of ever-larger hotel restaurants. And then came Miami. When Haas arrived at Colony Bistro, the restaurant of the iconic, Art Deco Colony Hotel in South Beach in 1993, it was a tired affair, resting on its laurels. But within six months, the then 38-year-old chef revamped its menu, retooled its beverage program, and captured the admiration of Food & Wine, as well as a host of other publications. “Superlative food from start to finish,” opined the Miami Herald in its review of the restaurant. “Not since Norman Van Aken first hit at A Mano has there been a chef of such star quality on Ocean Drive.”

Haas found himself a celebrity chef in the days before Food Network made every toque with a catch phrase a household name. “I had some pretty wild times,” he admits. “You’re a local celebrity in South Beach. You get to bypass all the lines and be taken to the VIP section.”

He hung out with a group the press dubbed the “Mango Gang,” a cadre of local chefs who put the bright, snappy flavors of South Florida cooking on the culinary map. “It was the beginning of the American regional food movement,” says Haas, who counts celebrity cooks Van Aken, Aarón Sanchez, and Chris Consetino among his friends. “There was Southwestern cooking, California cooking, but there wasn’t any other cooking around. They tried to put a handle on us. Everybody had mango trees in their backyard.”

And then, after running several successful restaurants in South Florida, he says he was ready for a change. So he packed up his chef knives, and moved to Guatemala with his third wife, Tanya, to “do the ex-pat thing.” When he left South Florida, the Miami New Times dubbed him “Best Chef to Go Away” and lamented: “Mr. Haas was a wild one all right—rarely got enough sleep, if you know what I mean. But he was talented, and the flavors of his food jumped off the plate like a frog from a frying pan.”

Seven years—and two successful restaurants in the Colonial city of Antigua—later, he and Tanya were ready to move back to the States. Shortly after, he partnered with an old buddy, John Knorr, co-founder of Evolution Craft Brewing Co. in Salisbury, and eventually helped him open a restaurant in Maryland. When Haas saw the beat-up stone building that would become the first Birroteca, he thought it had good bones. Most importantly, it was cheap. He spent three days power-washing away all the grime.

Today, Haas insists he has mellowed with age—and no longer parties as hard. With his stocky stature, gray Berber carpet hair, and raspy voice from a pack-a-day habit, he’s more Buffalo than South Beach. His employees call him “the Old Man” or simply “Dad.”

“He comes through you like a force,” says Jon Hicks, Haas’s executive chef at The Nickel Taphouse. “It’s like a father force. He makes you pay attention to things you might not have paid attention to before. He walks in the room and it’s like Dad came home. Better straighten up.”

“He’s a hard-ass, which is the nicest way to say it,” says Chris Rivera, Encantada’s general manager. “He’ll hold your feet to the fire. But it works for him. He’s the same person 100 percent of the time, and I respect that. Once you get through the ringer and he trusts that you’re doing a good job, he takes care of you.”

“I see this as the future of 21st-century dining,” says Haas.

Those who drink the “Robbin Haas Kool-Aid,” as he calls it, are a devoted lot. A few have festooned their bodies with Birroteca-themed tattoos, including a former general manager who inked his ankle with “Don’t Hassle the Haas,” a play on David “Don’t Hassel the Hoff” Hasselhoff.

“He’s an old-school chef, no bullshit, take-no-prisoners,” says Molinaro. “When I tell people he’s 60 years old, they’re like, ‘Holy hell!’ He’s always firing, always ready to go. . . . He’s very innovative and always thinking ahead. He lets the chefs and general managers take the forefront. He’s given us all the tools we need to succeed and now it’s up to us to do it.”

As requests for vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free meals became increasingly regular at his restaurants, Haas, a recovering meat-and-potatoes guy, says it was time to rethink the very idea of what an entree could be. And after Molinaro dined at Philadelphia’s James Beard-nominated vegan restaurant Vedge, she and Haas began batting around ideas for a Baltimore-based restaurant with a locally sourced menu, heavily driven by vegetables.

“I really see this as the future of 21st-century dining,” he says. “I think things are going to become a lot more vegetable-centric, a lot more grains. A traditional chef looks at what we call the center of the plate and sees a protein, whether it’s quail or a piece of salmon or chicken breast. But we’re trying to make it where vegetables are the center of the plate. [In many dishes], animal protein becomes the secondary or tertiary item on the plate.”

In creating the menu, Molinaro, who worked her way up from pastry chef to executive chef at Birroteca, wanted to present vegetables in revolutionary ways. “I thought, ‘How can I make them sexier, more chef-like, have them in ways you would never even have thought of before?’”

So she brainstormed unlikely pairings, such as watermelon with whipped lardo and soy-marinated cucumbers. Or sea urchin with cauliflower custard, Granny Smith apples, and Meyer lemon. Dessert means beetroot meringue with white and dark chocolates and blackberry. It’s food that skirts unconventionality, like the art on the walls of the museum. “I want customers and employees to have fun with what we’re trying to achieve here,” says Haas. “There’s definitely a niche for this kind of restaurant.”

Its uniqueness, Haas thinks, will help Encantada thrive in the AVAM space where other restaurants have faded away. Rebecca Hoffberger, founder and director of AVAM, believes this time she’s found a keeper. “He’s the best restaurateur I’ve ever had,” says Hoffberger, who sought out Haas for the space. “To have someone whose food I adore, and who has never had an unsuccessful restaurant, that’s bowling strikes.

“I don’t think it’s the space that’s so difficult. Restaurants in general are challenging. There were other issues more personal to the people we’ve had there. . . . I wish all the chefs that have come through the best, but after 20 years, I really think that this is it.”

Hoffberger and Haas worked closely on trying to make the cafe look like an extension of the museum. Hoffberger picked out the colorful Suzani fabric for the chairs and the artwork for the walls. David Hess, who designed the sweeping iron handrail in the museum, created several of the restaurant’s tables from fallen wood. Sometime next year, Haas plans to convert the museum’s glittering art bus into a sort of permanent food truck and open an outdoor bar, furthering the museum-restaurant connection.

For now, Haas says he’s as excited about Encantada as he has been for any restaurant he’s ever opened. He insists he’s committed to Baltimore for the long haul and has ideas for other ventures in the Mid-Atlantic. “I really like the Baltimore restaurant scene,” he says. “There are a lot of great restaurants, but Baltimore is still missing a lot of things. I just have to find the right space to do it.”

ROBBIN HAAS

Chef/owner, Birroteca, The Nickel Taphouse

The Brewer’s Art: The Baltimore Spring Water, its version of a gin and tonic.

The Food Market: Its lobster mac and cheese.

Tapas Teatro: The baby octopus and potatoes.

Pho Dat Thanh, Towson: Pho.

Zorba’s Bar & Grill: The lamb chops.

BINDA SINGH

Co-owner, Ambassador Dining Room

The Food Market: The scallops are amazing.

French Kitchen at Lord Baltimore Hotel: The vibrant beet salad.

Atwater’s: I’m guaranteed to find something I like.

Stone Mill Bakery: The delicious tuna salad.

Cinghiale: The best hand-made pasta in town.

SERGIO VITALE

Chef/co-owner, Chazz: A Bronx Original, Aldo’s Ristorante Italiano

The Food Market: Buffalo pickles—and everything else.

The Capital Grille: Marconi’s salad.

Shoo-Fly Diner: The “adult” slushies. (The apple-cider is dangerously good.)

Broadway Diner: The patty melts.

Andy Nelson’s Southern Pit Barbecue: The pulled pork.

BRIGITTE BLEDSOE

Corporate executive chef, Miss Shirley’s Cafe

Hamilton Tavern: Best burger, hands down.

Thames Street Oyster House: The raw bar, lobster roll.

Fusion: A great, unknown sushi spot in Cockeysville.

Christopher Daniel: The appetizers and EJ, the best bartender/server.

Pappas Restaurant: The crab cake, Old Bay wings.

CHRIS BECKER

Chief operations officer/executive chef, Bagby Restaurant group

Linwoods: Chef Jay Rohlfing’s cooking.

Maggie’s Farm: Fried-oyster steam buns, whiskey lemonades.

Joung Kak: Kimchee soup.

Thames Street Oyster House: The lobster roll.

W.C. Harlan: Late-night drinks.

KARIN AND BUD TIFFANY

Co-owners, Peter’s Inn

Cinghiale: For its consistency.

Poncabird Pub: Old-school, banging, crazy view.

The Food Market: Great brunch, luscious libations.

Hersh’s Pizza & Drinks: Its clever menu.

Tortilleria Sinaloa: Huevos con carne.