CH-CH CHANGES

The Corner Pantry Expands: Since it opened on Valentine’s Day in 2014, many Mt. Washington dwellers have made this breakfast-and-lunch spot a part of their regular routine. Come March, the cafe will offer even more to love by nearly doubling its footprint. The spot will expand into the vacant space next door and add an additional 1,150 square feet. With more room to breathe, husband-and-wife owners Neill and Emily Howell plan to add a second counter for faster service, optional private dining and meeting space, and an expanded kitchen that will allow them to amp up catering. Plus, there will be more opportunities to host events and cooking classes for customers.

“Since we opened nearly six years ago, we have been able to produce some really incredible food out of a 400 square-foot kitchen,” Neill said in a statement. “Our business has evolved based on the feedback and needs from our customers, and we know expanded seating and offerings are what we can add at this point in our journey.” The owners plan to remain open for most of the construction period, which will begin in January.

Cosima Brings Names New Executive Chef: There’s been a slight shift in the kitchen operations at this Southern Italian destination along the Jones Falls in Hampden. Longtime chef de cuisine Jonathan Hicks was recently promoted to executive chef. But, rest assured—Baltimore’s own culinary queen Donna Crivello isn’t going anywhere. She’s stepped into the role of concept director at Cosima, where she will continue the restaurant’s monthly cooking classes, add tutorials for children on the weekends, and oversee private events. “As the granddaughter of Cosima and daughter of a Neapolitan mother, I absolutely love the warmth of Southern Italian hospitality,” Crivello said in a statement. “Those ideals are at the root of the restaurant, and I’m excited to be able to maintain and expand them.”

Bird in Hand Adds Bar Program: Since opening near the Johns Hopkins University campus three years ago, students and neighbors have relied on this collaborative spot—from the teams behind the Ivy Bookshop and Woodberry Kitchen—for a strong latte, espresso, or pastry. Last month, the cafe added to its offerings by launching “Bird Bar,” a collection of wine, beer, and cider to pair with the food menu. In keeping with Bird in Hand’s hyper-local philosophy, the list features Baltimore purveyors including Peabody Heights, Union Craft, and Oliver Brewing Company.

OPEN

Ropewalk Tavern: For nearly six months, Federal Hill revelers have missed the strong drinks and lively piano bar at this neighborhood staple. The McFaul family—who also runs three Ropewalk locations on the Eastern Shore—closed their flagship in July to make some fun upgrades in honor of the bar’s 25th anniversary year. And at the grand reopening party earlier this week, the team unveiled refreshed bars, new arcade games like Skee Ball and basketball shoot-outs, and a bowling alley upstairs. Swing by to play some of the new games, shoot a round of pool, and sip one of Ropewalk’s 150 featured beers.

COMING SOON

Angels Ate Lemons: The weekend before Christmas, Socle—the Old Goucher complex that houses Larder, Sophomore Coffee, and beer garden and natural wine bar Fadensonnen—will welcome yet another attraction. This new weekend concept invites guests to taste some of the worldly wines from Fadensonnen’s storage room in a daytime setting. Named after a line in an Etel Adnan poem, the experience is meant to foster “deep conversation and togetherness,” according to a message posted to Instagram. Angels Ate Lemons marks yet another innovative bar program from Lane Harlan, who also oversees Clavel and W.C. Harlan nearby in Remington.

NiHao Baltimore: We’ve been keeping tabs on this Baltimore expansion from culinary icon Peter Chang, who began his career as a chef at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. He has built an empire serving Sichuan specialties at strip-mall restaurants throughout the DMV, as well as at his fine-dining spot Q by Peter Chang in Bethesda. Earlier this year, word spread that the chef and his family planned to take over the former Fork & Wrench space in Canton. Though the restaurant isn’t slated to open until February 2020, the family was given a warm welcome last weekend when they hosted a pop-up at Artifact Coffee—giving diners a sneak peek at what the menu might look like when NiHao Baltimore officially opens.

Tofu skin salad and Sichuan pickled baked rockfish were among the featured dishes from Peter, his wife, pastry chef Lisa Chang, and chef Pichet Ong. (Ong is the James Beard award-nominated chef behind Brothers and Sisters located inside The Line Hotel in D.C., which also houses Artifact sister-spot, A Rake’s Progress.) Stay tuned for more details on NiHao’s highly anticipated grand opening in 2020.

With its shelves stocked with fancy finishing salts, artisanal toothpaste, and hand-crafted herbal cleaning products, Larder feels like a place where you might find Gwyneth Paltrow nibbling on a gluten-free frittata with nettles and edible flowers.

Larder is owned by chef Helena del Pesco, whose chef C.V. includes gigs around the globe in places such as Mexico City, Tel Aviv, and the San Francisco Bay area, where she trimmed chanterelles and made nettle ravioli at Alice Water’s legendary Chez Panisse.

Del Pesco opened Larder after befriending Lane Harlan of Clavel fame. Harlan, ever the sorceress, excels at taking properties in need of some TLC and making magic of them. This time around, she had the vision to transform a dilapidated block between Maryland and Charles Streets to make way for three independently owned businesses, of which Larder (sharing a courtyard with Harlan’s new natural wine bar/tap room Fadensonnen) is one.

At Larder, you’ll find a lunch menu rife with farm-grown produce, including house-made relishes and kimchis, as well as scratch-made gluten-free pastries. The menu rotates weekly, but for all of the offerings, the focus is on “food that tastes good, feels good, and does good,” according to the menu’s website.

If, indeed, we are what we eat, we’re in good hands here—all ingredients were recently picked, plucked, or sourced from farm or field. For Del Pesco, who holds a graduate degree in fine arts from Berkley, presentation is paramount, and everything— from the blond wood walls to the not-too-sour house kombucha—is meticulously curated and crafted.

The menu is concise, yet broad enough without feeling limited, thanks to the opportunities for customizing vegetarian dishes with cheese, lamb, or beef. On my visit, a too-pretty-to-eat mushroom and pesto pasta arrived in a delicate blue-and-white striped bowl filled with brown rice pasta, tossed with a mix of cremini, shitake, and oyster mushrooms, and enlivened with fresh dill and walnut pesto.

In the bowl of Beans, Greens & Grains, the individual elements, including locally grown Hmong sticky rice, black beans, Swiss chard, kale, and grilled radicchio (and sheep’s milk, which we added on), worked in harmony, though some acid to boost the brightness of the vegetables would have been appreciated.

Another item, a simple bowl of tomato soup with sprigs of dill flower floating in delicate broth, was the essence of summer. The soup was accompanied by a diminutive—and delicious—grilled cheese served on whole-grain bread sourced from the new Motzi Bread, owned by Russell Trimmer, the former lead baker of Woodberry Kitchen.

Know before you go that Del Pesco takes more of a quality over quantity approach and portions tend to be on the smaller side, though the price point, an average of $9 per, allows you to order an additional plate or side without breaking the bank.

“Some people complain about our portion size,” admits Del Pesco, “but with food this nutrient-dense, I ask them, ‘Are you still hungry or do you feel satisfied?’”

On our trip to Larder, two of three of us felt the latter. Even so, we decided to sample the spicy-sweet strawberry tart. In addition to being delicious, its ginger-vinegar curd seemed practically detoxifying, even good for the gut. Gywneth would approve.

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›› LARDER 3 W. 23rd St., 410-982-6246, Tues.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

When chef Helena del Pesco, owner of the new Larder in Old Goucher, arrived here after years of living in the San Francisco Bay area, she was surprised by the farms she found. “I was expecting it to be a challenge coming from a place where there’s such a big scene around small organic farms, but there are a lot more small farms here than I expected,” she says.

In trading the San Francisco Bay for the Chesapeake Bay, del Pesco has found new ways to challenge herself. “There’s not as much abundance year-round and you have to find ways to preserve things,” she says. “But those constraints can bring out more creativity and that’s been really fun.”

I know you came from California a few years ago. What brought you to Baltimore?
My husband and I moved here three years ago from San Francisco after traveling for a year. We wanted to be closer to his family—they are in Delaware. My first ever trip to Baltimore was to go to an event that Hex Ferments was hosting. Owner Meaghan and I had gone to art school together in Minneapolis and I started working at Hex while living in Northern Maryland and commuting down to Baltimore. I fell in love with Baltimore and the food scene here. We did a pop up before we even moved here, and it sold out within 24 hours.

I know that Lane Harlan approached you about the idea of sharing a courtyard when she opened Fadensonnen.
Lane and I really clicked in terms of our sensibility and our interests. We have spent a lot of time in Oaxaca and Mexico City, and I could tell that she was very passionate about mezcal and took it seriously. She also has a poetry background, so we both have this crossover between food and art.

Originally, I was going to potentially be the chef for the wine bar at Fadensonnen, but when she realized that there was going to be additional space on the property, she approached me and Kris [Fulton, the owner of Sophomore Coffee]. We’re all collaborators now. We make the pâtes and pickles and marmalades for Fadensonnen and we make the pastries for Sophomore Coffee.

How did you become a chef?
I have a background in art. I went to undergrad at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and have a graduate degree from UC Berkley for fine art. I became a chef because I was already working with food as part of performance events and as an artist, I was making ceramics and textiles and objects incorporated into those meals. My thesis project led up to 8- to 10-year-olds running a restaurant for a day. They made all of the plates and silverware and ceramics and made menus out of silkscreen. And they made ravioli with the fillings you’d expect from 8- to 10-year-olds. My favorite was a burrito ravioli.

So how did you go from an artist’s studio to restaurants?
I had worked in restaurants for a very long time–more front of the house as a server. I’ve always loved food and worked for really fantastic chefs in San Francisco, who shared not only their techniques but their sourcing of ingredients and working closely with farmers. I’ve always loved plants. I garden. I have some background in making folk medicine from plants. As an artist, I felt limited with what I could do in the space of a gallery or a museum—there were lots of restrictions in terms of bringing living things and food into those spaces.

I love the creative process of cooking for others. It’s very immediate and ephemeral. You make it—and then it’s gone. That appeals to me and also it appeals to me in terms of a footprint. In art school, I’d produce all of this stuff. Maybe someone buys it, or it goes into a storage unit or gets throw away. The object can feel like a burden. With cooking, I love how immediate it is.

What was it like to work at the famed Chez Panisse?
I did work at Chez Panisse as a stage. It was more like a brief stint. My good friend Jerome Waag was the head chef there. The people who work in that kitchen are very intuitive, very elegant. It’s obvious that they know the ingredients really well and treat the ingredients with so much respect and do things minimally to make those things shine. I’ve worked in more formal kitchens like Arzak in San Sebastian, Spain. The kitchen is very theatrical, very elaborate like paper thin layers of potatoes in vegetable dyes. There’s so much process and it’s incredible.

Has this informed your farm-to-table leaning Larder?
I’m more drawn to the Chez Panisse style—showing off what the plant has to offer. I also worked [in the San Francisco area] at Camino and Bar Agricole. Those two places had a strong farm-to-table ethos that became how I thought about food, how I think about seasons and getting to know what a farmer’s strengths are and building a menu and the products that you know are available. I’m not a hard-core locavore. I get my citrus from California and olive oil from Italy, but it’s all in the service of preparing a menu that is based on what’s here.

Did you do any R&D before opening Larder?
I spent the first two years getting to know the local farms and doing farm visits. Getting to know what other people in the area are doing and how could we fill a need. I think lunch is challenging for a farm-to-table restaurant. It’s challenging to keep the prices low enough.

Has anything about the food scene here surprised you?
Finding Clavel and just realizing that there’s really good Mexican food to be had in Baltimore was a great surprise. At one point, good Mexican food on the East Coast was pretty tough to find. I’ve been really impressed with how supportive the food scene is—how supportive people are of each other, of sharing resources and giving advice. One thing I miss the most in San Francisco is some of the Asian flavors, the Thai, the Japanese—there’s not as much variety with that.

Any menu items you want to highlight?
The frittata is on the menu to keep things consistent, but it will change with the season. We can change the flavor profile with the seasons. It’s a comfort food that won’t put you to sleep easily. We started out doing nettles in the beginning that’s a lovely spring delicacy super good for you. The chicken salad is very approachable, but it’s made with tahini instead of mayonnaise. The menu is approachable menu with little twist that make it more interesting or delicious.

What’s your elevator pitch for people coming to visit Larder?
We’re trying to provide the overall element of food being delicious and also that you leave feeling good, not weighed down, that it feels good in the body and that the space is pleasant, so that it’s a total experience and service, of course, adds to that and it all feels very personal.

OPEN

Larder: Socle, the Old Goucher food-and-drink complex from Clavel owners Lane Harlan and Matthew Pierce, is officially operating in full swing now that its final concept, Larder, has opened its doors. Joining Harlan’s natural wine bar Fadensonnen and celebrated coffee shop Sophomore Coffee in the renovated carriage house on Maryland Avenue, Larder will specialize in hyper-local dishes prepared by chef Helena del Pesco. Area produce—as well as many ingredients fermented in house—will show up in colorful dishes such as crunchy snap pea and asparagus salad and fig-leaf infused yogurt pudding with roasted peaches. While stopping by for lunch or an early dinner (normal hours will be 11 a.m.-7 p.m.), guests will also be able to peruse shelves stocked with artisan pantry goods from local purveyors like Hex Ferments and Keepwell Vinegar, and some from businesses as far as Oaxaca and San Francisco. 2223 Maryland Ave. 410-982-6246

COMING SOON

Old Boy: A grand opening party for Phil Han’s newest concepts inside Broadway Market has been set for Wednesday, May 15. All of the stalls inside the recently renovatedFells Point institution have been celebrating staggered grand openings since March. Veteran vendors Vikki’s Fells Point Deli, Sophia’s Place, and Sal’s Seafood were the first to premiere, followed by newbie Thai Street. Now, the concepts from Han of Dooby’s are ready to make their debut.

Among them is Old Boy, an authentic Korean eatery whose kitchen will be headed up by Irvin Seo of the popular Haenyo pop-up. In addition, Han’s team will operate a centerpiece bar called Fat Tiger, which is open now serving an all-day menu of coffee, beer, wine, and cocktails. The bar team will also oversee El Tigre—a tiki-inspired play on the Fat Tiger concept that will expand bar service outside to the market’s patio. At the grand opening party, guests will enjoy a soju ice luge at Old Boy, complimentary welcome punch at Fat Tiger, and plenty of tiki drinks from El Tigre outside. 1640 Aliceanna St.

Rock & Toss Crab House: The developers at Greenberg Gibbons are adding yet another eatery to Foundry Row in Owings Mills this summer. The mixed-use development already boasts plenty of fast-casual destinations including Nalley Fresh, Sunset Raw Juice Bar, Mission BBQ, and Zoë’s Kitchen, and now, this Bowie-based seafood spot is also joining the lineup. The 3,060-square-foot restaurant will offer shrimp, baby clams, green mussels, crawfish, and, of course, blue crabs. The entrees arrive covered in signature cajun, lemon pepper, or garlic-butter seasonings. 10100 Reisterstown Rd.

Whole Foods Towson: In other development news, Greenberg Gibbons and Caves Valley Partners have inked a deal with Whole Foods to be the anchor tenant in the forthcoming Towson Row project on the corner of York Road and Towsontown Boulevard. Whole Foods was announced as a tenant years ago, but later pulled out of the ongoing project. Now, the grocery chain is back on board with plans for two levels of parking, a mezzanine space, and an outdoor dining terrace. Construction on the store is expected to begin later this year and it will likely open in late 2021. When complete, the five-acre development will also include 75,000 square feet of retail and residential space, student housing units, luxury apartments, and a 220-room hotel. York Rd. & Towsontown Blvd., Towson.

EPICUREAN EVENTS

5/11: Diamondback Brewing Mole Stout Release
This weekend, the team from Diamondback Brewing will officially release its new bourbon barrel-aged mole stout, Tal Uno—a special collaboration with local chocolate expert Jinji Fraser of Pure Chocolate by Jinji. The 9-percent ABV beer was aged in Buffalo Trace bourbon barrels for 14 months before being infused with Jinji’s ingredients to produce notes of vanilla, spicy pepper, and dark chocolate. Swing by the South Baltimore brewery from 12-7 p.m. on Saturday to sample the release while mingling with brewers who will be on hand to discuss the yearlong process. There will also be live music by funky-folk band Gene & Friends and special Mexican pizzas fired up in the brewery’s new in-house kitchen. 1215 E. Fort Ave. 443-388-9626

SHUT

Atelier Culinaire: This Little Italy fine-dining den closed its doors late last month. Staffed by culinary students at Stratford University, the restaurant was known as a launchpad for young chefs transitioning into the industry. Regulars at the white tablecloth spot enjoyed classics like the roasted rack of lamb, beef bourguignon, and ginger-crusted salmon. There’s no word yet on what will become of the Stiles street space, which is equipped with a built-in bar and mezzanine level. 806 Stiles St.

Gnocco: After three years in Highlandtown, Gnocco will open for its final night of service this Saturday, May 11. The decision comes as Chef Brian Lavin prepares for a move to the West Coast. Throughout its run, the cozy Spanish and French-influenced neighborhood spot became known for its antipasti, comforting pastas, and one of the best Negronis on this side of the pond. 3734 Fleet St.

Prime Corner: Sadly, the days are also numbered for Hampden’s colorful bodega on the corner of 34th Street and Chestnut Avenue. Owner Tess Russell took to social media last week to announce that the she would be closing the store at the end of the month. “The economics of a grocery are super hard,” Russell recently told the Baltimore Business Journal. “Some months we did great, others were tougher.” In the eight months since it opened, the store became known for its artisan grocery items and pantry products from the likes of Taharka Bros., City Seeds, Donut Alliance, and The Lunchbox Lady. Here’s hoping another local operator will reactivate the neighborhood gathering space, which formerly operated as kid-friendly Play Cafe before Russell took over. 3400 Chestnut Ave.