On a warm morning in late August, Myeasha Taylor wades down a row of nearly waist-high greenery at Black Butterfly Farm, a teaching urban farm on 6.7 acres in Curtis Bay that’s part of the nonprofit Farm Alliance of Baltimore. Taylor, the farm’s education and production manager, picks a handful of ripe fish peppers—bright red chiles about the size of small jalapeños—from among the 100 “row feet” of plants running down the plot between columns of indigo, flowering okra, and red amaranth taller than she is. Bees weave through the summer air. Butterflies alight on the tallest sun-drenched plants.

“This is our little ancestral crop section,” says Taylor as she lifts a tangle of vines woven through a line of near-invisible trellises. Most of the peppers are still the same shade as the leaves surrounding them, some are painted in stunning kelly-green and orange stripes, some are vermillion, still others the color of butter. A few are white, a distinction that gave the fish pepper its name, as it was favored by cooks in 19th-century Chesapeake Bay oyster and crab houses for use in their fish stews, disappearing into pale, creamy soups, and before that, in Black communities in the Mid-Atlantic where the peppers were grown and used in fish and seafood cookery.

That fish peppers are now growing in this South Baltimore field, are being sold at the 32nd Street Farmers Market, and are on the menu of such places as Blacksauce Kitchen, Artifact Coffee, and Spike Gjerde’s Woodberry Tavern—where they’re used so liberally, the peppers have their own mis en place containers at the chefs’ stations—is largely because of Denzel Mitchell Jr.

Mitchell, the Oklahoma native who is one of the founders of the Farm Alliance and is currently its executive director, got interested in urban farming 15 years ago. That was also when he first learned about fish peppers from a local farmer. He had never heard of them.

“So, I go home, I look up the fish pepper, and find out that it’s intrinsically connected to the enslaved African experience in the Chesapeake. It has a storied history in Maryland,” says Mitchell.

Captivated, he went to local nurseries and farmers markets, thinking he’d have no problem finding the peppers—but to his surprise, no one was growing them. It was as if the pepper, once so widely found in fish houses that it was named after them, had disappeared.

Mitchell is a cook at Blacksauce Kitchen, the Remington restaurant he helped Damian Mosley open in 2016 that specializes in barbecue and biscuits. Blacksauce uses fish peppers in a house-made hot sauce, in fish sandwiches, in mayonnaise, and in other seasonal preparations. As he shares his fish pepper origin story from Blacksauce’s tiny dining room, he pauses, disappearing into the back and returning with a Mason jar of pickled fish peppers. He opens the jar, adding a few peppers to a dish of curried chickpeas on a Trinidadian flatbread known as bara. The peppers are fruity, floral, with a heat similar to a serrano—spicy but not bitter.

“The story of the fish pepper really spoke to me,” he says, lifting more peppers from the jar. “It was an homage to enslaved African foodways, and that influence in Chesapeake Bay cuisine, that connection to the cuisine in this region—it was the most popular pepper in the fish houses, so there’s this heritage.”

Mitchell’s initial research led him to the culinary historian Michael W. Twitty, author of the James Beard Award-winning book The Cooking Gene, who specializes in traditional African-American foodways. Twitty had curated an African-American heritage seed collection, the first of its kind, with the Landreth Seed Company. (Founded in Philadelphia in 1784, Landreth is the oldest seed company in the U.S.)

Twitty theorizes that Haitians fleeing the Haitian Revolution, a rebellion of the enslaved against French colonial rule in the late 1700s, initially brought fish pepper plants to the Mid-Atlantic, where the peppers were grown by enslaved Africans and became popular in Black community cooking and later among regional fish houses. Then by the early 20th century, due to urbanization and changing food styles, the pepper was largely forgotten, absent from regional cookbooks, missing from farms, and impossible to find in the ground.

“When you’re erased from history, what can you do? Things disappear because people get exhausted, even when things taste good. It’s simply not worth the time anymore,” says Twitty, speaking, of course, not just about the trajectory of the fish pepper.

The preservation and subsequent rediscovery of the pepper happened largely by accident. Sometime in the 1940s, a Black artist from southeastern Pennsylvania named Horace Pippin traded some fish pepper seeds with Pennsylvania beekeeper and seed collector H. Ralph Weaver in exchange for bee stings to treat his arthritis. (Bee stings have long been used as a therapy for joint pain.) Years later, that beekeeper’s grandson, food ethnographer William Woys Weaver, found his grandfather’s seeds, realized how rare they were, started growing them, and introduced the seeds to the Seed Savers Exchange.

“They were in the freezer at my grandfather’s house,” says Weaver now, noting that properly frozen seeds will keep for many years. “I’ve planted corn frozen in 1999 and gotten 100-percent germination,” he says, adding that wheat can keep for 1,000 years. “He had them all in little baby food jars at the bottom of the deep-freeze. Probably my baby food jars because my grandparents raised me,” says Weaver. “I had [seeds] that nobody could find at that time.”

“THE STORY OF THE FISH PEPPER WAS AN HOMAGE TO ENSLAVED AFRICAN FOODWAYS.’’

Many years after that, Mitchell would order seeds whose lineage can be traced back to Pippin’s bartered handful and begin the next renaissance of the fish pepper in Baltimore.

Not long after Mitchell started growing his 21st-century fish peppers, he ran into Spike Gjerde—one of the foremost chefs in the region and the only Baltimore chef to have won the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef Mid-Atlantic award—and the two got to talking about produce, as food people do. As Mitchell tells it, Gjerde stopped in his tracks when he found out what Mitchell was growing. “He was like, ‘Fish peppers! Fish peppers? Where? Can we go right now?’” Mitchell smiles, considering the jar in front of him, filled with its deeply aromatic crimson treasure.

At the time, Mitchell was farming on six vacant lots in Baltimore’s Belair-Edison neighborhood. “I only had 15 plants, but no one else was growing them,” says Mitchell, whose Five Seeds Farm, which closed in 2016, is now the site of Hillen Homestead’s flower farm. “Spike wanted to get Tabasco out of his restaurant and have a Maryland hot sauce that represented Maryland cuisine on Chesapeake oysters, grown by Maryland farms.” Gjerde bought all the peppers Mitchell had. Soon he was growing enough peppers so that Gjerde could start making Snake Oil, his own brand of hot sauce, a heady mixture of mashed fish peppers, cider vinegar, and sea salt that’s sold at Artifact Coffee and used in abundance at Gjerde’s restaurant, Woodberry Tavern.

Back at Black Butterfly Farm, Taylor says they’d recently started harvesting the season’s fish peppers—55 pounds of them had just gone to Woodberry. “They’re easy to grow. And they’re easy to pick; they just take a long-ass time,” she says, smiling under her broad sun hat.

For years, the Farm Alliance has been buying fish pepper seeds each season—these days primarily from the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange—but this year, says Taylor, they’ll probably start saving some of their own seeds as well. “Seed saving is really important,” she continues, noting how the peppers were off the market for so long and that Farm Alliance gets funding for ancestral crops through a grant from the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education organization. The practice, of course, is also how the pepper survived in the first place.

Taylor surveys the adjacent crops—in addition to the amaranth and indigo, there are rows of sweet potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, and bright marigolds nestled below the amaranth like stray bursts of gold. Those crops will head to Farm Alliance’s market stall at the 32nd Street Farmers Market in Waverly, and many of the peppers will migrate to Gjerde’s kitchen.

“I became aware of fish peppers from reading about them, from accounts by Michael Twitty and William Woys Weaver, because they weren’t around,” says Gjerde, sitting on the patio outside his restaurant one afternoon. “I started asking people about fish peppers, and it was really Denzel who found me.”

When Gjerde went to Mitchell’s farm for the first time, the chef still hadn’t even seen a fish pepper, much less tasted one. “They’re bright, hot, not as aggressively spicy as habañeros, with a grassy quality. That was the first time I’d ever seen an albino [pepper],” Gjerde says. “We even tried to make a white hot sauce, but it was a kind of unappealing tan.”  Gjerde smiles ruefully as he considers the notion of beige hot sauce. “We’ve made green Snake Oil in the past, but we mostly just use the red. Anytime we’re adding heat or spice to cooking at Woodberry, it’s through pickled fish pepper, dried fish pepper, or Snake Oil.”

Although the production of Snake Oil paused during the pandemic, Gjerde says they’ve got a healthy supply of it, in the form of about 100 cases of bottles and 50 barrels of pepper mash, and he’s planning to jumpstart production soon. Gjerde likes the rather histrionic appeal of his hot sauce’s name, as “snake oil” has long been used to describe cure-all elixirs.

“It’s not hot hot. We always have to relieve people of the notion that it’s gonna, like, hurt them.”

He looks over his latest menu, cataloging the dishes that use fish pepper: on the deviled eggs and the crudites that make up the Tavern Board, in the scrapple musubi, the pit-beef carpaccio, the smoked-clam savory pie, the fried chicken, the crab cake, and the steak au poivre. So, most of the dishes on the menu? “Yeah,” he says, with a rather startled laugh, “now that you mention it.”

These days Mitchell is not the only local farmer growing fish peppers. Gjerde’s personal culinary obsession, running to thousands of pounds of the peppers a year, requires sourcing beyond the Farm Alliance’s fields, and has expanded to include One Straw Farm in northern Baltimore County, Heritage Acres Farm in Pennsylvania, and 78 Acres in Smithsburg, all of whom now grow fish peppers, too.

As more people have become aware of the cultural history and importance of local produce and demand has grown, more farms have added the peppers to their repertoire, including Sassafras Creek Farm in Leonardtown and Tomatoes, Etc. in Westminster, whose owner, farmer Jim Crebs, sells the plants at his family’s stall at the JFX farmers market during the summer. David Thomas, who with his wife, Tonya, runs H3irloom Food Group, a Baltimore business dedicated to exploring Black food traditions, plans to grow fish peppers at Gabriel Fields, their Upperco farm.

And fish peppers aren’t just at Woodberry. Chef John Shields, long a proponent of Chesapeake cuisine, uses them in a Haitian-style dish with blue catfish. And in Upper Fells, chef-owner Robbie Tutlewski of Little Donna’s ferments fish peppers and adds them to aiolis and sauces, and doses his crab and catfish stew with them—a fitting destination for the peppers, whose bright colors are no longer hidden in the pot.

Mitchell is circumspect when he considers the role he’s played in Baltimore’s current fish pepper renaissance, which is not so much the second regional revival of the pepper but the third.

“I think the first one was actually the 1810s to 1830s, during the enslavement period,” he says, tracing the pepper’s heritage back before the oyster and crab houses to when those cooks learned to add fish peppers to their soups from the Black communities who had grown the peppers in the first place. “It was in the Black enslaved service community, then in the Black culinary community,” Mitchell says.

“We’re talking about the peppers that were used with terrapin, blue crab, rockfish, oysters, and shad,” says Twitty. “This particular pepper comes to be associated with the genius of these Black cooks working in these fish houses,” he continues, noting the importance of pepper vinegar and pepper sauce.

In Twitty’s 70-page pamphlet, Fighting Old Nep: The Foodways of Enslaved Marylanders, 1634-1864, he includes a recipe for fish pepper sauce; it’s also the second recipe in The Cooking Gene. That recipe, calling for fish peppers, kosher salt, and apple cider vinegar or rum, bears a striking resemblance to the ingredients in Gjerde’s Snake Oil, which is not a coincidence.

“It’s confirmation that food transcends all types of barriers; food is the connection. It’s pretty cool when you think about it,” says Mitchell. In Blacksauce Kitchen’s single dining room booth, he sits back, smiling. “I mean, there could be worse things attached to your legacy.”

When Woodberry Kitchen served its last meal on March 15, 2020, after a nearly 12-year run, owner-chef Spike Gjerde was forced to accept that the hallowed farm-to-table restaurant would never be the same again.

With its army of staff (nine cooks and chefs on the line), wildly innovative use of ingredients, and daily menu, the lightening-in-a-bottle Clipper Mill restaurant, which sourced every ingredient within the confines of the Chesapeake Bay region, was simply not sustainable anymore in the post-COVID era. In the ensuing two-and-a-half years, Gjerde used the space to run a vast virtual marketplace and CSA. The restaurant remained open for outdoor seating only, but the dining room never reopened, except for a brief period as a limited-service pub.

Last December, when the restaurant opened again as Woodberry Tavern, local foodies rejoiced. After all, this had been the place to take out-of-town friends if you wanted to show off Charm City’s culinary scene. In many ways, the restaurant was synonymous with the city. But things have changed.

In its new iteration, Woodberry Tavern is a micro-sized restaurant set in the space adjacent to the former main dining room that was often used for events and overflow. Now, the main dining room has been transformed into an event space. Reservations for the tavern are released a month in advance and go fast, so scoring a seat here feels like winning the lottery.

On a weeknight in January—our first return to the space in years—it was something of a shock to see Gjerde standing on the top rung of a ladder in the events area as he attempted to affix a balloon drop net to the soaring ceiling. (Wasn’t there a handyman in the house?) But it was also an apt metaphor for the hard-working chef who has reached great culinary heights as the first—and only—person in Maryland to win a James Beard Award for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic and whose messianic zeal for local sourcing has spawned dozens of imitators.

Happily, the essence of what made Woodberry Baltimore’s standard bearer of farm-to-table cuisine is alive and well here. But one thing it’s not, says Gjerde, is Woodberry Kitchen. In fact, in some ways, the new restaurant’s biggest competition is its former self.

“It’s amplified by the fact that we are still calling ourselves Woodberry Kitchen,” says Gjerde of the umbrella name for the organization. “I would never do that again. Next time I’d call the restaurant, ‘This Is Not Woodberry Kitchen,’” he says, half-jokingly. “That’s what we are suffering from most—it’s the comparison—the prices, the experience. People say, ‘I miss the oven, I miss the flatbread,’ but that’s a highly idealized version of Woodberry. People forget the wait at the door or the fact that sometimes you couldn’t hear yourself think from the noise.”

With its exposed-brick walls, cathedral ceiling, locally crafted wooden banquettes, and rustic barn-chic feel, the tavern exudes the same farm-to-charm vibe as the original establishment. And the menu mission, while scaled back, is still pure of purpose, strictly adhering to the boundaries of our Bay, while Gjerde continues to focus on supporting regional farmers and food producers in his sourcing. Despite its diminutive size—just 28 seats including the bar—it’s still plenty ambitious, thanks to Gjerde and executive chef Steven Kenny, his former longtime sous chef at Woodberry Kitchen.

Woodberry calls itself a “tavern,” but it’s more akin to a place like New York City’s famed Gramercy Tavern than a place for a burger and a beer. (Though the team did recently add its burger—previously an exclusively late-night offer—to its regular dinner menu.) Gjerde’s vision was to create a refuge.

“A tavern implies a way station,” he says, “a place for a traveler where you can find comfort and nourishment and conviviality.”

Know before you go that your travels here, like many restaurants post-pandemic, will not come cheap. The restaurant has added a 23-percent surcharge for service that goes to the back of the house, as Gjerde feels strongly that this was “an overdue and necessary” measure and a more equitable way of compensating his entire team. Even without the tacked-on tip, however, the prices are high (between $27 for the tofu dish and $67 for the rib-eye).

That said, there is a lovely walnut “tavern board” (made by former Woodberry Kitchen cook-turned-woodworker Greg Magliacane) that’s a total delight—and it’s gratis. This gift from the kitchen “helps set the tone,” says Gjerde, and serves as a sort of microcosm for the menu mission. The offerings change, but always include some enticing array of dip (an addictive smoked trout on our visits), crackers, cheese, micro-vegetables, and maybe a few slices of cured meat.

In addition to the board, you might consider sharing an opulent shareable appetizer of oysters presented three ways (raw, roasted, and fried), a wheel of FireFly Farms cheese with chestnuts and pears, or perhaps a soup or a salad, before moving to an entree. Unlike Woodberry Kitchen, where there were shareable flatbreads and such, this menu is more structured.

Across several visits, we ordered almost everything—and didn’t have a bad bite. Our favorite appetizer, the simple green salad, was a joy to behold—a lovely tower of tender leaves and herbs dressed just-so with turmeric-tinged Keepwell vinaigrette. With greens this good, the salad needed no other adornment. We were equally delighted by the vegetarian Savory Pie, a soothing pastry purse packed with an assortment of mushrooms inside an ethereal crust. (There’s also a version with oysters.)

The fried chicken (a battered breast, as well as a leg and thigh that have been cooked down to make a succulent stew) and ricotta dumplings dish was the very definition of comfort food on a winter’s night. There’s also a delicious and cleverly named Rye-aged Rib-eye Au Poivre. It was a generous hunk of meat, full of buttery and beefy flavor and a hint of whiskey notes thanks to aging in Rittenhouse Rye for a month. A scattering of mushrooms across the top deepened its earthiness.

The entrees come a la carte, so you might want to round out your meal with a side of whatever is coming from the vegetable patch in any given month. On our visits, it was spicy carrots and cheesy greens (an au gratin blend of wilted greens including spinach, kale, and turnip tops).

Desserts are thoughtful, too, and offer an ode to vintage Maryland recipes, including a lofty, multi-layered Lady Baltimore Cake and schmierkase—a dessert brought to Baltimore in the 19th century by German immigrants, like cheesecake, though slightly less sweet—this version spiced by cardamom and brightened by poached pears.

While I’ll likely pine for Woodberry Kitchen for years to come, Woodberry Tavern has its own charms, enchanting in a quieter way that honors the original. Despite the transformation of the space, one thing has stayed the same: The cerebral chef is still a starry-eyed dreamer who aims high, no matter the challenge.

WOODBERRY TAVERN 2010 Clipper Park Rd. HOURS: Wed.-Sun. 5:30-9:30 p.m. PRICES: Appetizers: $15-39; entrees: $27-67; desserts: $15. AMBIANCE: Rustic elegance.

You may have heard that Baltimore has been disparaged recently. Here at Baltimore, we’ve spent 112 years celebrating this city—and we’re not about to back down now. Take a look back as we revisit some of the many reasons why Charm City lives up to its name. Here are some highlights from our archives:

We’ve got Otterbein’s.

The sacred sugar cookies of Bawlmer.

And the best crab houses in the country.

From Captain James, Oprah’s favorite, to the James Beard Award-winning Schultz’s Crab House.

Photography by Scott Suchman

Oprah Winfrey got her start here on WJZ.

Recently, she made a local news appearance on WBAL to defend Baltimore’s honor. “This charming city is anything but full of rats,” she said.

Illustration by Anita Kunz

We have sports legends.

The Iron Man even beat The Iron Horse’s streak!

Photography by Mike Morgan

Our chefs win James Beard Awards.

Woodberry Kitchen’s Spike Gjerde is a farm-to-fork pioneer. Even former First Lady Michelle Obama eats here.

Photography by Mike Morgan

We have some of the best museums in the country.

Among them are the first-of-its-kind National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History & Culture, and the Baltimore Museum of Art—which is expected to unveil its upcoming Matisse center by 2021, making it the premier place to study the French artist and his works.

Some of the most iconic artists hail from here.

John Waters, Blaze Starr, and Joyce Scott. (Need we say more?)

-Bryan Burris

We have the largest free arts festival in the country.

Local legends (Ethel Ennis) to national names (TLC) have stepped up to the stage here.

Our symphony is home to conductor Marin Alsop, the first woman to head a major American orchestra.

In an era when symphonies around the country are closing their doors permanently, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is one of only 25 of the 800 or so U.S. orchestras to have been around for more than 100 years.

Photography by David Colwell

We invented just about everything.

Hyperbole? We think not. Read on.

Sean McCabe

Parts & Labor, Spike and Amy Gjerde’s meat-focused restaurant/butchery in Remington will sell its last locally sourced lamb chop this week.

The five-year-old restaurant will officially close after dinner service on August 5.

While the space opened to critical acclaim, the unique practice of purchasing whole animals from local farmers presented challenges in profitability. The staff learned of the news late last week.

While plans are still unfolding, there will be events and celebrations up to the last dinner service this Sunday.

“We might continue to keep the bar open a few days a week through the closing of the restaurant,” says managing partner Corey Polyoka.

As he weighs why the concept didn’t work, sitting in a booth at one of the restaurant’s final lunch shifts on a Saturday afternoon, Gjerde is in a deeply reflective mood.

The restaurant’s closing, “was a long time coming” Gjerde says. “Of course restaurants come and go and open and close and that’s part of life, but at its heart, Parts & Labor was a deep dive into the economics of local meat.”

While Woodberry Kitchen—which relies almost entirely on locally sourced ingredients—raised awareness of local sourcing and helped educate consumers, Parts & Labor presented new challenges and took the concept to another level.

It was the first restaurant in the state to practice whole animal seam butchery, attempting to use every part of the animal product in production.

“We took what we understood about local beef and lamb and goat and poultry and scaled it so that we could continue upon the work that we were doing at Woodberry,” explains Gjerde. “I knew that if we were going to do anything else in the city and serve meat, we needed to do it on our terms with thoughtful local producers.”

While Gjerde knew that there would be hurdles, the goal turned out to be a little too lofty, with many factors working against a local outfit. Food costs were higher and the public was exposed to cuts or types of meat—like coulotte steak (cut from the sirloin cap) or organ meats—that they might not otherwise know.

“Our collective understanding and expectation of what meat costs and how it gets to us has been formed by industrial meat production in this country,” says Gjerde. “That means that we have everything from dollar burgers at fast-food joints to beef and pork in supermarkets, and everything in between. When you take out the efficiencies of mass industrial processing operations and bring that back to the local level, you are at a tremendous disadvantage based on what people expect.”

Polyoka says that not pursuing USDA approval was also a factor that contributed to their demise. “We developed butcher’s cuts that were out of pure need to get as much value out of the whole carcass as possible,” he says. “[Because we lacked USDA approval], we could only sell meat in our own retail shop or to restaurants that we are connected with—we couldn’t push it into different channels.”

Gjerde cites statistics he has written in his phone, saying he is proud of the fact that value was returned to growers. “We put almost $4,000,000 back into the economy, and $2.5 million was beef, pork, lamb, goat, chicken, and duck—almost all of it from Maryland.”

As the restaurant changed menus and concepts in an effort to be more profitable, six or so months ago, Gjerde, Polyoka, and butcher George Marsh had to face the inevitable reality that it was likely time to close.

“We probably held on a lot longer than most people would have,” says Gjerde, who still owns six other spots, including A Rake’s Progress in D.C., as well as a successful canning operation. “We realized we were having trouble paying the growers—and that’s not why we are here. We were in major arrears, but at this point it’s a break-even scenario.”

While the news saddened staff, Gjerde and Polyoka wanted to be thoughtful about the closing.

“For me, in a few of the restaurants I worked in as a young cook or pastry chef, I found out that they were closing because when I got there, the doors were padlocked shut—and that was all the notice that I ever got that the restaurant was closing,” says Gjerde, who won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mid Atlantic in 2015.

“I didn’t want that for this place or for these people or for our guests. Some of the families who come to this shop are my favorite people. They know that they could have paid less elsewhere but they wouldn’t get the quality of the meat that we’re doing anywhere else—connecting with these people has made it worth it.”

But Gjerde remains resolute. “We are not done with this,” he says. “But when we do it again—it’s not if but when—it will be with all of the knowledge and a much deeper understanding of how this actually works. We wouldn’t make the mistake of not having USDA again. And my biggest mistake is that I confused processing space with restaurant space—and those are two very different things.”

With the closing of the space, Gjerde is still sounding the alarm that, as consumers, we should consider the sourcing of everything we eat, especially meat.

“The reasons we thought it was important to do Parts & Labor are still out there—if anything they are more urgent,” he says. “Commodity meat production in this culture and all the environmental and social impacts and even the health issues that come from having this unending supply of cheap meat is a problem. Parts & Labor was what I thought was a rational response to what was wrong about the way we eat meat in this country.”

And while the restaurant enters its final week, the duo is far from giving up on the concept.

“I had high hopes for what Parts & Labor could do immediately for the local food systems,” says Gjerde. “But we’re not done.”

Inside a neoclassical church in Adams Morgan, light streams through the massive stained-glass windows illuminating several cloth-bound “bibles” that sit stacked beneath the soaring cathedral ceiling. This isn’t just any hallowed space, however. In fact, it hasn’t been a place of prayer for more than 20 years, but it is a place of worship—especially when you begin with an elixir from the good book of gorgeously crafted cocktails and linger for the night.

Welcome to A Rake’s Progress inside the capital’s trendy The Line Hotel, Maryland chef Spike Gjerde’s newest restaurant and his first foray outside of Baltimore. The name of the space was inspired not only by Gjerde’s nostalgia for time spent raking leaves on a Vermont farm in his youth, but by a series of satirical William Hogarth paintings in which the follies of a young rake, who goes from excess to ruin, were once seen as a social commentary.

Similarly, Gjerde, who studied philosophy at Middlebury College, serves us food for thought. As with his five Baltimore restaurants (including Woodberry Kitchen), at Rake’s, he feeds us commentary on the industrialization of our food systems in the modern day. (His message is pretty simple: We don’t need to fly rabbits in from France when they’re hopping around Liberty Delight Farms in Reisterstown.) Here, with his usual messianic zeal, Gjerde is spreading his locavore gospel to Baltimore’s sister city.

The project has been four years in the making, but if “day ninety-six,” as it reads on our menu during one spring visit, is any indication, Gjerde and his disciples—including executive chef Opie Crooks and co-owner/barman Corey Polyoka—are on their way to becoming some of the most important tastemakers in the country.

Since the January opening, devotees have included Chez Panisse’s James Beard Award-winning Alice Waters (a farm-to-table icon in her own right), funnyman Bill Murray, and former First Lady Michelle Obama, who celebrated her 54th birthday here. It’s hard not to feel reverent while sitting in the lofty space. The church’s organ has been replaced by the commercial kitchen, while the pipes have been refashioned into a spectacular chandelier that hangs high above the expansive dining room. A new altar, one where lattes, macchiatos, and Spike-i-attos (a double machiatto and an espresso shot on the side) are made at the coffee bar, is central to the setting. Also of note: Gjerde’s mad-for-plaid motif on display at Woodberry has been supplanted by more polished materials such as leather armchairs and horsehair sofas.

While the wine and cocktail lists resemble religious texts (and were made by Baltimore bookmaker Heather O’Hara), the paper dinner menus are stamped with sealing wax and printed with thought-provoking passages of poetry from Richard Wilbur and Henry David Thoreau. Heavy on game and highlighting foods found in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, it feels like an offering. “You won’t find lemons or olive oil here,” says our server, noting that those products aren’t grown or made regionally. But diners will find items sourced from the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

For our meal, that meant a shellfish tower stacked with tiers of Shooting Point Virginia oysters, a crudo-style Maryland rockfish tossed with apples and turnips, and even local lobster, found 70 miles off Maryland’s shores. It also included a charcuterie board of Tidewater ham accompanied by mini sweet potato biscuits, heavenly gougères cheese puffs, and cherry jam made by Lauren Sandler of Gjerde’s Baltimore Canningshed.

Another appetizer of note included small plates of fried quail given a clever riff on Korean fried chicken. The small bird was delicate and full of flavor, only enhanced by the Asian addition of pickled cucumbers and gochujang. The shareable, Appalachian-inspired Kilt Greens with crisped ham, rye crumbs, hard-boiled egg, and tossed with a hot bacon-mustard dressing was delicious and decadent. Even the arrival of the dish—presented in a wooden bowl tableside, then whisked away to a carving station for tossing—felt special.

For shareable entrees, our whole hearth-roasted chicken was also presented before being carried away, then carved with craftsman-like precision. The brined bird was paired with buttermilk potatoes and creamed greens, basically comfort food at its very finest. On the ever-changing menu, supper-sized plates included spit-roasted pork loin lacquered in a sorghum-honey glaze and Potomac rockfish with barbequed heirloom marfax beans grown in Southern Maryland, which added wonderful, if unexpected, dimension.

It’s a noble mission to be faithful to local sourcing, but it’s also a challenge to make food taste this good while sticking to those strictures. Being from Baltimore and understanding Gjerde’s mission certainly helped us appreciate the operation, but we also took the pulse of the dining room and watched the dishes arriving at nearby tables. The looks of delight turned into something else after first bites were taken. You might even call it rapture.

A RAKE’S PROGRESS: 1770 Euclid St., Washington, D.C., 202-588-0525. HOURS: Mon.-Thurs. 5-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 5-midnight; Sun. 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 5-11 p.m. PRICES: Appetizers and small plates: $15-68; entrees: $38-154 (including plates for two); desserts: $5-16. AMBIANCE: Elegant former sacred space.

OPEN

The Walters Cafe: If hunger pangs strike while perusing the collections at the Walters Art Museum, this recently renovated café on the first floor has got you covered. The eatery has been updated with contemporary décor and a brand-new menu offering beer and wine, as well as salads, sandwiches, sweets, and snacks sourced from local purveyors. Be on the lookout for hometown favorites including Scotty Cakes baked goods, Mouth Party Caramels, Ceremony Coffee, and other sustainable fare from the socially conscious chefs at City Seeds. Aside from regular breakfast and lunch service, the café will be open until 8:30 p.m. on Thursday evenings for visitors hoping to grab bite to eat before touring the galleries or attending performances in the museum’s famed Sculpture Court. 600 N. Charles St., 410-547-9000

Baltimore Soup Company: South Baltimore locals are already raving about the newest restaurant tenant to open on the first floor of the 2 E. Wells apartment complex in Riverside. Earlier this week, the second location of Baltimore Soup Company—whose flagship is in Towson—opened its doors offering a variety of sandwiches, salads, and, of course, its namesake soups. Daily specials vary, but frequent options include steamy bowls of Maryland crab, hearty vegetable, chicken corn chowder, and tomato-basil bisque. 2 E. Wells St.

Culinary Architecture Cafe: In other South Baltimore news, this spinoff of Culinary Architecture Market in Pigtown debuted inside the historic Lion Brothers Building in Hollins Market earlier this month. The building, which was recently restored by Cross Street Partners, is also home to The Grid—a modern co-working space from University of Maryland BioPark. The spot specializes in coffees paired with fresh-baked pastries, biscuits, sandwiches, soups, and flatbreads. 875 Hollins St.  

COMING SOON

Darker Than Blue: Waverly locals probably remember Darker Than Blue—chef Casey Jenkins’ sophisticated soul food spot that closed its doors in 2013. Now, Jenkins has plans to revive the concept in the Northwood Plaza Shopping Center near Morgan State University. He’s currently in the final phases of raising capital for the project, and hopes to open during the second quarter of 2019. Although the location will be different, Jenkins says that the restaurant’s classics (think fried catfish, citrus-glazed salmon, chicken and waffles, and Louisiana tilapia) will make a comeback on the menu. 1534 Havenwood Rd.

NEWS

Michelle Obama Celebrates Birthday with Spike Gjerde: Spike Gjerde’s new restaurant A Rake’s Progress, situated inside the trendy Line Hotel in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., might not be open to the public yet—but its team got in some good practice serving a special meal to former First Lady Michelle Obama and former President Barack Obama in honor of Michelle’s birthday. Although D.C. boasts plenty of culinary options, we’re not surprised that the former FLOTUS chose one of Gjerde’s spots to celebrate the big 5-4. She’s been known to frequent Woodberry Kitchen whenever she is in town. A Rake’s Progress is expected to officially debut later this month. 770 Euclid St NW, Washington, D.C., 202-588-0525

EPICUREAN EVENTS 

1/24: Calasag Filipino x Soul Food Pop-Up at Ida B’s Table
At this special culinary collaboration next week, Dylan Ubaldo of the local Calasag Pop-Up will fuse his Filipino flavors with the modern soul food at Ida B’s Table. Dishes on the evening’s menu will include grilled octopus marinated in a banana ketchup, catfish with sweet potato fritters and collard greens, smoked pork cheek, and Louisiana-style beignets made from purple yams and coconut sugar. Both Ubaldo and Ida B’s owner/executive chef David Thomas will be sharing their thoughts on the inspiration behind the dishes throughout the evening. Ida B’s Table, 235 Holliday St., $65, 6:30-9:30 p.m.

SHUT

Dimitri’s Tavern: Another dive bar bit the dust last week. After nearly 45 years in business, Dimitri’s Tavern on Falls Road in Hampden has closed its doors as owner James Dimitri prepares for retirement. According to reports by The Sun, the building—now owned by local developer CityWide Properties—will soon be transformed into a Mexican restaurant offering scratch-made dishes and happy hour specials. Aside from its affordable drinks, Dimitri’s was best known for its packaged goods and no-holds-barred karaoke nights. 3820 Falls Rd. 

“We should try one more restaurant or maybe get out of town,” Spike Gjerde recalls telling his wife Amy 11 years ago after they had just closed Joy America Cafe inside the American Visionary Art Museum.

They decided to press their luck, and partnered with local developer Bill Struever to take over an old machine manufacturing shop in Clipper Mill—a North Baltimore borough that wasn’t much to write home about at the time.

“A lot of people thought we were crazy to come here,” Spike says with a laugh. “There were barely roads, and a lot of construction. No one lived here. And it was kind of hard to find. But the building was this spectacular space. The cool industrial spaces we have in Baltimore need to have life—they don’t build them like this anymore.”

After a year of working with Struever—as well as other Clipper Mill designers including lighting specialist Anthony Corradetti and late architecture guru John Gutierrez—Spike and Amy unveiled Woodberry Kitchen to the public on October 27, 2007. Amy was the visionary behind the restaurant’s rustic aesthetic, which boasts dark woods, an abundance of Mason jars, and servers sporting plaid shirts.

“When we opened, I had a vision of how I wanted people to feel when they were in the space,” Amy says. “And it centered around them being comfortable. I didn’t want anyone to come in here and feel like they had to act a certain way.” 

Now celebrating its 10-year anniversary, the dining destination still maintains its homey atmosphere and focus on sustainability—a motto that Spike says many chefs hadn’t yet adopted when Woodberry opened.

“For me, there was always a clear idea that we were going to be buying from local farms,” he says. “I didn’t want any concept—in the sense that we were going to be just like this kind of restaurant, or that kind of restaurant—to stand in the way of that.”

Amy says that the opening menu—which included favorite dishes like Woodberry’s deviled eggs and chicken and biscuits—was inspired by the family dinners that she and Spike had in the year prior to opening the restaurant.

“We ate a lot of meals together at home with the kids,” she says. “We were making large plates with salad, potatoes, and local meat. That informed our pathway forward for Woodberry.” Adds Spike: “It sure as heck did.”

Further bolstering Woodberry’s appeal was a solid opening staff. Among the employees was Corey Polyoka, an aspiring restaurateur who was finishing college when he was offered the bar manager position by Spike’s late business partner Nelson Carey.

“When I was hired, I hadn’t met the Gjerdes yet,” recalls Polyoka, now managing partner for their restaurant group, Foodshed. “The first time I actually met them was at the liquor board hearing.”

In the early days, the trio was an integral part of the restaurant’s roster—with Spike in the kitchen, Amy expediting, and Polyoka manning the bar. Throughout the years, Polyoka helped to evolve the bar program alongside the sustainable kitchen, getting rid of big-name options like Grand Marnier in favor of locally distilled spirits and farm beers.

In keeping with the restaurant’s commitment to regional sourcing, the bar program noticeably lacks certain citrus, juices, and refined sugars. Although the team admits that this has presented its challenges throughout the years, they are sticklers for the cause.

“We think about this business as an engine to return value to our local agricultural economy,” Spike says, estimating that the restaurant returned more than $2 million to local farms in 2016 alone. “Our relationship with growers is what the restaurant is built on, and we’ve deepened those ties over time.”

Looking back, the partners have many fond memories of their first decade. They reminisce about weekend service, New Year’s Eve celebrations, and memorable employees like celebrated painter Amy Sherald—a former server who was recently commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to paint a portrait of Michelle Obama. 

The former First Lady, in fact has played a special role in Woodberry’s story, as she herself has visited the restaurant twice throughout its decade in business.

“She gives the best hugs,” Amy remembers of Michelle Obama’s first visit prior to Beyonce’s concert at M&T Bank Stadium in June 2016. “She walked in and I was thinking she would shake my hand, but she hugged me and the kids. My son is not very emotive, and even he was grinning from ear to ear.”

For Polyoka, the restaurant has provided him with much more than a career. It’s also where he met his wife, Jackie, with whom he now has four children. “She was a server,” he says. “One day she stole a blueberry pie and I had to talk to her about it.”

Spike notes winning the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mid Atlantic in 2015 as being one of his favorite memories. (The restaurant has also been nominated for its bar program, and most recently for Outstanding Service in 2017.) But, above all, he is happy to see that their sustainable approach has been maintained and inspired others to follow a similar mantra.

“I’m proud of being here for 10 years,” Spike says. “We chose a different path, and probably the hardest path, for a restaurant to take. But we’re still here.”

With citywide destinations including Woodberry Kitchen, Artifact Coffee, Parts & Labor, and Bird in Hand, James Beard Award-winning chef Spike Gjerde already dominates a good portion of the local dining scene. And a new al fresco hangout coming soon to Beatty Development’s Harbor Point site will significantly increase the restaurateur’s reach.

“We already feed a lot of people,” says Corey Polyoka, managing partner of Gjerde’s restaurant group Foodshed. “But this space nearly doubles that footprint.”

Sandlot—a harbor-front oasis slated to open Memorial Day Weekend—encompasses 30,000 square feet of open space to be used for outdoor dining, recreation, live performances, family-friendly games, and community outreach events.

The spot is part of Beatty Development’s up-and-coming Harbor Point project on the border of Harbor East and Fells Point, which will eventually yield more than three million square feet of office, residential, retail, and hotel properties.

Polyoka says that the vision for the hub was inspired by Foodshed’s recent partnership with Beatty Development founder Michael Beatty—who was looking for a temporary concept to take over the outdoor promenade for five years while the Harbor Point peninsula continues to flourish. Eventually, the space will be transformed into a full five-acre waterfront park.  

“We really enjoyed each other’s company and started to see that we had a shared vision for what we could do in Baltimore, both on the development and food sides,” Polyoka says of the partnership. “He started to see an opportunity to make a lot of this square footage available to a different kind of sourcing.”

Polyoka explains that the design was heavily influenced by city zoning, which required all structures to be portable since the space is technically considered a park: “The city wanted us to be able to pull everything away if we needed to,” he adds.

To embrace the zoning requirements, the Foodshed team came up with the idea to set up multiple shipping containers and a recycled 1968 Safari Airstream trailer to house elements including a mobile cocktail bar, ice cream and blender bar, storage rooms, and an 8×20-foot commercial kitchen complete with its own takeout window.

“The more you’re here, the more you realize, ‘This is going to be pretty big,’” says contractor Luke Steckel of Hampden’s Studios on Sisson, who has worked on a number of the Foodshed properties. “I’m always the guy that they call to do something different.”

Though menu details are not yet set in stone, the seasonal offerings (think snacks on a stick, nachos, sandwiches, smoothies, juices, and barbecued meats made on a custom rotisserie built in West Baltimore) will be streamlined by chef de cuisine Patrick Morrow and maintain Foodshed’s philosophy of supporting local producers.

“From a food and drink perspective, we wanted to give people another way to experience local food,” Polyoka says. “It’s going to be geared toward families and all Baltimoreans to come and enjoy.”  

To complement the eats and drinks, the open space will also boast six professional-sized volleyball courts, three bocce courts, a tree garden with canopy lighting, climbing apparatuses for kids, beach chairs overlooking the waterfront, its own hop yard, and custom-built interactive seating for outdoor concerts and performances. 

“It has kind of an island vibe,” Polyoka says. “It’s going to be a fun place to play during the summertime.”

Aside from the requisite volleyball tournaments, the site will also host community programs like sailing regattas, Fourth of July festivities, food and wine festivals, and bike parties. Sandlot will also be open for visitors to check out during the Saturday morning Fells Point Farmers’ Market, which has temporarily relocated to Harbor Point for the season while construction continues at Broadway Square. 

Polyoka, a father of four, says that he’s most excited to introduce a new city gathering place that is family friendly—an aspect that has strong ties to the meaning behind the concept’s name.

“For me, Sandlot is all about remembering being young, being outside, and not taking things too seriously,” he says. 

Nestled between the majestic mountains of West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley and Kanawha River and just down the street from Booker T. Washington’s boyhood home, an unassuming white PVC pipe protrudes from the ground. Amidst the tall blades of grass in this verdant valley, it’s nearly invisible. The only suggestion that it might be something of note is a derrick, once used in drilling deep substratum brine, and now standing decoratively over the pipe.

This opening in the earth—a well from which brine is pulled—serves as a symbol of past and present, reaching 350 feet down toward the 500-million-year-old Iapetus Ocean. It represents the last of the local salt makers in Malden, an area once so prolific in its production that it was known as “the salt-making capital of the East,” with more than 50 salt makers in the mid-1800s and three million bushels of salt produced in a year at its height. (At the World’s Fair in 1851 in London, Kanawha salt was deemed the “best salt in the world.”)

The well sits on the property of J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works, a family-run business that hand harvests the salt trapped between layers of sandstone in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. It also became an emblem of the company’s renewal and revival, when four years ago, the seventh generation of Dickinson family members decided to bring back the business, giving J.Q. Dickinson the distinction of being the oldest operating salt works in the state. “It’s an amazing feeling when I come to this farm every day to work,” says company co-founder Nancy Bruns, who established the business with her younger brother, Lewis Payne. “It’s like coming home. It’s being enveloped by your heritage, and it’s powerful to know that we’re doing something that’s successful based on what our ancestors did.”

On a hot, humid, overcast day—far from the ideal environment for the solar evaporation salt-making process—Bruns and Payne are hard at work on their family’s 200-year-old farm, about 10 miles from where they grew up in Charleston. Bruns is a classically trained chef who formerly owned a restaurant in Highlands, North Carolina; Payne and his wife, Paige, who also works for the business, spend summers working the land in Malden, though the Paynes live part-time in Baltimore so that their son, Davis, can attend The Odyssey School in Stevenson, while their daughter, Cameron, boards at St. Timothy’s School—Bruns’ alma mater, which is also in Stevenson.

There are other Baltimore ties, too. Though J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works is some 364 miles away, Malden counts as local when it comes to sourcing salt. From the J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works, on the site of a former garden center, 450 pounds of salt are stacked in recycled cardboard boxes bound for Baltimore. Lying in wait, behind a burlap curtain, the boxes, 25 pounds each, hold bags of salt that Woodberry Kitchen’s James Beard Award-winning chef, Spike Gjerde, will use as a key ingredient for his Snake Oil hot sauce. (In the week that follows, Bruns will make the six-hour drive to the Woodberry area to deliver the salt herself to save on shipping costs.) It is the salt that Gjerde uses exclusively at Woodberry Kitchen, Artifact Coffee, and Grand Cru. (He also uses it at Parts & Labor, though not exclusively.) In total, he buys 1,420 pounds of cooking and finishing salts a year from the company. “Over time, we’ve been able to shrink the ingredients that were from nonlocal sources at Woodberry,” says Gjerde. “But I never really dreamed we’d be able to do that with salt. Before J.Q. Dickinson, I was importing sea salt from Italy.”

While the salt is sold at some of the most celebrated kitchens in the country—Husk in Charleston, South Carolina, and The French Laundry in the Napa Valley—Baltimore is a major market for J.Q. Dickinson salt. Its finishing salts sit on the shelves at Trohv in Hampden, E.N. Olivier on Falls Road, Juniper Culinary Apothecary in the Mount Vernon Marketplace, and The Chesapeake Wine Company in Canton. The salt is also sold at MOM’s Organic Market in Hampden, as well as The Pigheaded Butcher in Timonium, and John Brown General & Butchery in Cockeysville. It’s the salt you taste when you buy a bar from Eldersburg-based Salazon Chocolate Co.

In America, there are a handful of salt makers, from Maine and Long Island to Oregon. But Dickinson salt is the only salt in the Northern Hemisphere drawn from an aquifer, which is permeable rock that has water running through it. “People ask me all the time, ‘Isn’t salt just salt? What makes yours different?’” says Bruns. “Our salt differs from other salts in the way that you think of anything else that comes from the earth. If you grow Pinot Noir grapes in California, New Zealand, or France, they’re going to taste different because of the soil and their terroir. I think of salt in the same way. Our salt is coming from underground and running through lots of rocks, and so it’s gaining all those minerals. And the minerality of our salt is different than the minerality of any other salt.”

Malden was once known as “the salt-making capital of the East” with more than 50 salt makers.

Move over Morton—sea salt is hotter than ever. (In recent years, even Wendy’s changed its fry recipe for the first time in decades, adding sea salt to the spuds.) As consumers and retailers have discovered the ways in which sea salt can elevate flavor—contributing coarseness, crunchiness, and boldness—the market has soared. The gourmet salt market is expected to reach $1,340.9 million globally by 2019, according to Markets and Markets global market research and consulting company.

Unlike salts such as Himalayan salts and Morton Salt that are mined from mountains and employ additives to keep them from caking, J.Q. Dickinson’s salt is said to be superior. “It’s pure and has young, open crystals that add a lot of crunch and flavor and make the food more interesting,” says Liz Nuttle, owner of E.N. Olivier. “The finishing salt is very special,” concurs Gjerde. “It’s distinct from any salt I’ve ever tasted. It doesn’t have the same intense attack on the taste buds. It has a softness that I attribute to the higher presence of other minerals and is one of the reasons you can add it to the end of cooking. The size and shape of the crystal makes it an incredible complement to the food we make. I always have it in my bag when I travel.”

Salt, or sodium chloride (NaCl on the chemical compound chart), is a naturally occurring material and an essential element in our diets. According to the CDC, each day the average American consumes about 3,400 milligrams of salt, which might be mined from the earth or harvested from the sea. “It’s the only condiment produced on every continent and the only thing humans crave, because we need it to survive,” says Nuttle.

Salt has played an important role in world history and been a prized possession, dating as far back as 6050 B.C. Roman soldiers were given an allowance of salt know as salarium, from which the word “salary” is derived. It’s also been used in religious offerings in Egyptian culture and, at one time, was one of the world’s most sought-after commodities for trade. Even the Phoenicians were known to trade salt. “Salt dates back to the earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent,” explains Carter Bruns, Nancy’s historian husband who happened upon the history of the family’s livelihood while pursuing a master’s degree in history at Western Carolina University. “As soon as man started settling in cities and stayed in place to preserve food, there was salt.”

J.Q. Dickinson’s story starts in the early part of the 19th century when William Dickinson, along with his brother-in-law, Joel Shrewsbury, traveled from Bedford County, Virginia, to the rugged Kanawha Valley to find brine. Using hollowed-out sycamore trees as piping, Dickinson and his crew made their first salt well. Though Bruns and Payne use solar evaporation methods now, Dickinson and the generations that followed boiled the brine, which led the family to run and own other industries in coal, gas, and timber, holdings they still have today. By 1817, at a time before refrigeration, business was booming as barrels of salt were loaded on barges bound for Cincinnati, then the seat of the meat-packing industry, where the salt was used for curing and preservation, then, years later, for road construction and paving.

“We grew up in Charleston, but we didn’t know anything about the salt-making that went on here,” says Payne, the great, great, great, great grandson of William Dickinson.

Ironically, Bruns’ discovery came when Carter stumbled upon a wealth of information about the Kanawha Valley while writing his master’s thesis. “We would make fun of him on trips, because he always had these historical books,” Nancy recalls. “And one time, he brought Mark Kurlansky’s book Salt on a trip. He said, ‘You all make fun of me for reading these books, but your family is in this one.’ I was like, ‘Really?’ We grew up here, but we didn’t know the history.” Recalls Carter, “After learning the family’s history, she said, ‘Honey, do you think there’s still brine?’ And I told her that I had no doubt,” recalls Carter.

At the time, Bruns couldn’t shake the idea that she and her brother should attempt to bring the business back to life. “I was seeing more and more salt companies pop up, and it just kind of struck me,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘We have the land, the resources are there, and the timing is right where consumers and chefs are trying to source at home.’ There are just a handful of salt companies in this country—I saw a niche market.” With some gentle prodding, Payne agreed. Says Payne, “It took the second or third discussion to wrap my brain around it.”

Bruns couldn’t shake the idea that she and her brother should bring the business back to life.

In May of 2013, the siblings hired a water-well driller to bore a hole for brine. “We didn’t know what it was going to look like or taste like,” says Payne, “or if it was going to be contaminated or even if there was brine.” But with the help of well-preserved maps, which showed the locations and elevations of the wells on-site at the former salt offices still on the property, they had a hunch that they might find salt. “At 300 feet, which is what the maps told us, we hit saltwater,” says Payne. “We felt the deeper we go, the richer the brine is going to be.” At 350 feet, they hit pay dirt. “We were thrilled. We looked at each other and said, ‘What do we do now?’ We thought we might never get to that point.”

J.Q. Dickinson sold about 11,000 pounds of salt last year and expects that sales will stay strong in the coming year. In addition to tapping into interest in local sourcing, J.Q. Dickinson’s all-natural process taps into the sustainable sourcing trend, too. While most salt is mined with machines and then highly refined to remove impurities, J.Q. Dickinson relies solely on Mother Nature. “Only a few salt makers in the country were doing this through evaporation with salt water and noncooking methods. When we started a few years ago, Maine Sea Salt was the only one,” explains Payne.

The process unfolds over four to six weeks in one of two tanks that “clarify” and allow the iron in the salt to oxidize, then settle. It’s then moved into evaporation beds in one of four sun-houses. From there, the salt is evaporated to concentrate the salinity, before being pumped into the final crystallization beds, where the crystals are raked to separate them from the nigari (a mineral-rich liquid and naturally occurring byproduct of the salt, that can be used to make tofu). New beds are poured March through October.

The salt is a sight to behold. Against the black polyethylene-lined beds, the small, shimmering pure-white pyramid- and diamond-shape crystals float on the water like stars dotting the sky. “It’s important for a food product to be as clean and sustainable as possible,” says Bruns. “I think of the salt as an agricultural product that’s coming from the ground. We are letting Mother Nature do her work, and then we harvest it.”

Inside the offices, a few feet from the sun-houses, Payne and Paige sift through trays of salt that lay on cotton flour cloth for drying. They use hand-carved birch paddles to deal with impurities such as bugs and other organic matter that might land in the beds. It’s laborious, but it puts them in touch with their past. “Some days you think, ‘It had to be a fairy tale,’” says Payne. “But this brings it back to life. This isn’t just another product on the shelves. It’s something we take seriously, because using that name represents our entire family.”

Worth Its Salt

Most salts are at least 98 to 99 percent sodium chloride, but it’s what goes into that last 2 percent that distinguishes types of salt. Here’s a rundown on how to distinguish your salts.

Kosher Salt: Craggy crystals that come from either the sea or the earth. It’s fast-dissolving and can be used for all cooking.

Fleur De Sel: This sea salt is a special-occasion salt that comes from evaporating ocean water. The fleur de sel is the delicate crystals that form on the surface. Great on crudo or raw veggies.

Flaked Sea Salt: This is one of the fastest-dissolving salt of all grains, the most famous of which comes from Maldon, England. A great finishing salt to use on all foods.

Crystalline Sea Salt: Adds a powerful punch of flavor to anything from a salad to a steak. Depending on what minerals they contain, the crystals come fine or coarse and vary in color.

The partnership between Gjerde and The Ivy Bookshop dates back to 2013, when Ed reached out to Artifact Coffee about hosting its monthly “Starts Here” reading series—which will officially relocate to Bird in Hand once it opens. Inspired by the relationship between books and coffee, Gjerde suggested embarking on a more permanent venture.

“With digital media and internet sales, it’s no secret that the book business is very tough,” he says. “But Ann and Ed have completely reimagined and transformed their business into this nexus for all of the cool things happening around literature in the community. Ed talks about writers the same way I talk about farmers. He has the same kind of relationship with them, but also a love for what he does. It comes out at the Ivy and I think it’s going to come out here.”

The shop’s 2,500-title collection includes everything from children’s works to educational books hand-picked by Johns Hopkins professors. Ed says that, as the shop evolves, the selection will rotate based on community feedback.

“We know from experience that the single largest concentration of writers in Baltimore is in Charles Village going down to Station North, and we want this to be their center of gravity,” he says. “But we’re going to learn a lot. This community is so diverse, and they’re going to tell us what they want this store to be. We’re very good listeners.”

While the Berlins have taken the lead in curating the shop’s collection, Gjerde’s team will oversee the kitchen and coffee operations. In keeping with Gjerde’s sustainability motto, the menu, executed by chef de cuisine David Speegle, will highlight locally sourced sweet and savory pastries, puffed cereals, a line of house-baked French bread pizzas, and sandwiches ranging from pastrami on rye to an open-faced smoked trout tartine with pickles and herbed mayo.

“In college I remember having terrible food,” says managing partner Corey Polyoka. “So I’ve always wanted to build a place near a college campus and with great food. It’s exciting to be an influence for college kids and show them what can happen with food and space.”

The beverage program will use North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee for its espressos and pour-over drinks, and also highlight fresh-pressed juices, Spirit Tea Company teas sourced from Chicago, and a variety of herbal tisanes blended in house.

In addition to the food, Gjerde hopes that his farm-to-table mantra will be reflected in all other aspects of Bird in Hand, including its literature (some of Gjerde’s favorite titles exploring the environment and farming will be on display), reclaimed wood furnishings (highlights include 19th-century Hungarian wood tiles) and its signature events—some of which he says will be similar to the roundtable-style talks currently hosted at Artifact Coffee.

The owners are excited for Bird in Hand—which is named after a town in Pennsylvania that houses a number of Gjerde’s go-to growers—to be a hub for everything from readings and art exhibits to live music and spoken-word performances. The shop’s first-ever event will be a reading by Spanish-Argentine writer Andrés Neuman on November 10.

“You can do so much more when you design a place with intentionality,” Gjerde says. “This is going to be a place where people really come to be together, be creative, and exchange ideas. It gives me chills just talking about it.”

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.”

Much as he helped revitalize the Woodberry area of Hampden with Woodberry Kitchen, Spike Gjerde has transformed a blighted block of Remington into gastronomic gold with his latest farm-to-fork venture Parts & Labor. From inside this former car- and tire-repair shop, Gjerde has created a menu of cured meats, pork chops, and sausages cooked on an open hearth built of reclaimed Baltimore City cobblestones. It’s clear from the concept that the James Beard award finalist has a thing for the past. His idea—unfussy preparations all employing an element of open fire—harkens back to simpler times, but he’s put his own unmistakable Spike spin on it, continuing his commitment to engage with the agricultural economy of the Chesapeake region. (Even the
utensils—coming from Liberty in Sherrill, NY, the only U.S. manufacturer of stainless-steel flatware—have a local-as-possible provenance here.)

The front of the space features a nostalgic butcher shop with a wide selection of locally sourced meats such as pork from Whistle Pig Hollow and beef from Liberty Delight Farms. To further the feel, shelves are stocked with Gjerde’s house-made pickled and canned goods and handmade beeswax candles.

All of this, of course, is a preamble to the homey, hipster dining space with an equal amount of high-top communal tables and private booths. So when our hostess asks if we’d like to sit at a community table, we feel slightly misanthropic saying, “No.” Still, we are ushered past the heat of the hearth and settle into our private booth with a great view of the bustling bar area showcasing 20 brews on tap (from stouts to India pale ales) and a so-called growler station where they sell craft beer, lots of it local, to go.

It’s clear from the concept that the James Beard award finalist has a thing for the past.

Meat is the mainstay of the menu here, and butchering is practiced as high art. That’s not surprising when you consider that George Marsh, Gjerde’s head butcher is, in fact, a former art student. These days, he practices his craft in the form of whole-animal butchery, utilizing every part of the animal, which means there are cuts of meat represented here that you won’t find on other area menus.

While dry-aged cuts, including bottom blade (shoulder) and cattleman’s (beef knuckle), as well as organ meats (pig tail and blood sausage) and cured meats (garlic salami), are showcased, it’s a true testament to the kitchen’s deft touch that even vegetarians are flocking to Parts & Labor for seasonal salads and vegetable sides.

With the help of our server Nate (total Best-of contender), who helped guide us through unfamiliar fare, we started with a round of appetizers. We could have made a meal of the creamy cave-aged blue cheese paired with sour-cherry jam and a baguette made in Woodberry’s oven. The spicy cheese snack—in which grated cheddar and house-made cream cheese play off pickled onions and fish peppers—was equally flavorful, and the kale salad tossed with beets, strawberries, and house-made apple dressing was spring personified on a plate.

Even the meat entrees—served sliced—are meant for sharing, which adds to the communal vibe. Though the inventive sandwiches tempted us—a pork chop on a pretzel bun sounded promising, for example—we stuck with a robustly flavorful culotte steak and a buttery tri-tip. Both dishes were accompanied by an assertive herb-onion relish that gave great kick to the mellower meat. For even more palate punching, a bottle of house-made “Snake Oil” (fish pepper, cider, and sea salt) was served on the side.

The most adventurous among us ordered the Pride & Joy, a medley of pork skirt and kidney, strewn with fish peppers, toasted garlic, and cilantro with lettuce for wrapping. The plate—clean in no time—spoke for itself.

As every side arrived—grilled or griddled on the hearth—we proclaimed each one our favorite. In the final analysis, however, the griddled potatoes, crisp-crusted and screamingly hot from the grill, as well as stewed wood-ash hominy flecked with Anaheim peppers and tomatoes, were the clear winners.

Though the meal could have been heavy, we took the tapas approach, saving space for dessert. The quality and consistency of most everything we ate carried through to the final finish. The real dessert dazzler was a strawberry-rhubarb pie, offering lip-puckering tartness balanced by a blanket of sweet crumble.

By meal’s end, as every one of the 84 seats in the house was taken, our only lament was that a 7 p.m. reservation in a private booth was not going to be easy to score again. Next time around, we vowed, we’re willing to commune with everyone else.

PARTS & LABOR 2600 N. Howard St., Baltimore, 443-873-8887.
HOURS Dinner: Sun.-Thurs., 5-10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 5-11 p.m. 
CUISINE Farm-to-table with an emphasis on hearth-cooked meat.
PRICE Appetizers: $2-14; entrees: $9-25; desserts: $4-8.
ATMOSPHERE Farm chic in a rehabbed automotive shop.

A few weeks before Christmas, Charlie Gjerde is meeting with a fire marshal to discuss fire-code regulations at Papi’s Fells Point Taco Joint, a Mexican eatery right around the corner from his restaurant Alexander’s Tavern. As his contractor puts the finishing touches on the handsome wood bar, Gjerde speaks with the marshal about the occupancy rate on the patio, while surveying his second venture. “If we can get Papi’s turned around and on track, then we’ll get [restaurant] number three going,” he says with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. 

“I’d definitely love to get more places than my brother, but he’s opening them too fast.”

Gjerde’s older brother is none other than chef superstar and James Beard nominee Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen (not to mention Artifact Coffee, Shoo-Fly Diner, and Parts & Labor) fame. Charlie is two-and-a-half years younger and several inches shorter, but he shares the same blue eyes and Nordic looks of his older brother. Nelson Carey, owner of Grand Cru and a former co-owner of Woodberry Kitchen, who has known both brothers for years, distinguishes between them: “Charlie is more laid-back, calm, and fun-loving,” says Carey. “And Spike has a very intense intellectual approach to everything.”

Time was, in the early ’90s, both brothers were Charm City’s culinary “it” team, with four restaurants including their signature spot, Spike & Charlie’s Restaurant & Wine Bar in Mt. Vernon (across from the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall); Jr., a Bolton Hill comfort-food spot; Joy America Café, a Pan-Latin-inspired restaurant inside the American Visionary Art Museum; and Atlantic, an upscale seafood spot in Canton’s Can Company. Before opening Spike & Charlie’s in 1991, Charlie was working as a manager at LensCrafters, and Spike had a gig as a local pastry chef. “I remember sitting at my parents’ house one day, and Spike said to me, ‘Let’s do something together,’” recalls Gjerde, now 49. “We both like to cycle, and we even talked about opening a bicycle shop together.”

The idea of working with each other was not a new one. In their teen years, the Gjerde boys once toiled together at an outdoor-outfitters store as well as at a Crown gas station in their Cockeysville neighborhood, where the younger Gjerde was his big brother’s boss. “He would drive me crazy wearing his Crown hat sideways,” says Charlie. (“I wore my hat that way precisely to annoy him,” admits Spike, laughing at the memory.)

Even so, brotherly love prevailed, and despite their lack of experience, they decided to open an eatery. “We were looking around at restaurants and got introduced to urban real-estate pioneer Bill Struever,” says Charlie Gjerde. The brothers, still in their 20s at the time, were filled with youthful optimism. “It’s funny to look back at it now,” says Gjerde. “When you’re young and you’re opening your own place, you overlook things that are huge red flags—like no parking and the fact that five other places have gone under in the same spot. First, we were looking at this snake-bitten place on Charles Street, but when we got to Spike & Charlie’s, the place seemed to have so much more potential, even though they had gone through three owners before us.”

When they saw the spot, a mixed-use space with a jazz club on the lower level, they decided to forge ahead with their father David in tow as an investor. “The last place had gone out of business overnight and the bar was still fully stocked,” says Gjerde. “We each had a beer at the bar and did the deal with Bill right there—I don’t know what his thinking was. Here we are, two guys and my dad knowing nothing other than what my brother knew about cooking, and Bill said he would take a chance on us.”

With a business degree from the University of Vermont in hand, Gjerde handled the front of the house, while Spike (who had distinguished himself as a foodie while hosting elaborate dinner parties out of his Middlebury College dorm room) was in charge of creating menus and working in the kitchen. Besides being an investor, their father—a retired Proctor & Gamble executive—also acted as a banker and business adviser, while their mother, Alice, a retired Baltimore County schoolteacher, served as a hostess.

From the get-go, thanks to the proximity to the Meyerhoff and the fact that there was little competition in the area, the restaurant side was packed. “We had to turn people away,” recalls Gjerde. The menu was innovative as well. “We had a mixed-greens salad,” he says. “At the time, that was unheard of. It was the fanciest thing. That was the start of Spike and his local sourcing—instead of using just romaine or iceberg lettuce, the salad was this mixture of exotic lettuces.” The jazz club was another story. “Two white guys running a jazz club was not a recipe for success,” says Gjerde. “We had no clue.”

Still, the reviews were good, and the brothers basked in being the toast of the town, opening three additional restaurants along the way and feeding scads of celebrities, including Jerry Seinfeld, the B-52’s, Elvis Costello, and Kevin Bacon (“he wrote on a napkin that we should call our guacamole, ‘rockamole,’” recalls Gjerde), as they passed through to perform at the Meyerhoff. “A lot of the symphony people were awesome,” says Gjerde. “They’d come in with the conductor and say to us, ‘Sit down at our table and finish our wine with us.’ [Cellist] Yo-Yo Ma came over a lot. One time, we had a birthday party for 10 people, and, when he heard it was someone’s birthday, he played ‘Happy Birthday’ on his cello during dessert.”

But by 2004, Charlie was ready to call it quits, due to a combination of factors including high overhead at the Atlantic, landlord issues at Joy America Café, and continued problems with filling Spike & Charlie’s on non-performance nights at the Meyerhoff.

“It was very stressful,” admits Gjerde. “Jr.’s, which was a small restaurant with all the headaches of a big restaurant, was the first to go. Spike was ready to keep going, but I had gotten to the point where I didn’t want to go to work.” 

Though the brothers have not worked together since, the relationship remains strong (their families fish at Deep Creek Lake, for example, vacation at other locations, and holidays are almost always a shared occasion), and each says he has tremendous respect for the other. 

“There was no strife,” says Charlie. “We just needed to take a break. We’d been in the trenches together for 13 years. When he was working on Woodberry, I’d go by and see him, and he’d be in there with a sledgehammer standing on scaffolding. And it was just him, and that allowed him to lock into his exact vision.”

Spike says he’s proud of the fact that despite not seeing eye-to-eye as business partners, they weathered the storms well. “There was a real risk that a family business can blow a family apart,” he says, “and, to me, the best possible outcome was that we were able to manage a difficult process really well. We learned this process with each other and from each other, even though our partnership wasn’t the strongest.” Carey offers an outsider’s perspective: “Wisely, I think they both decided they’d rather be loving brothers than business partners,” he says.

With the folding of their mini-restaurant empire, Charlie took some time off to regroup and lick the wounds of a failed marriage. “I didn’t want to get back into the grind of the restaurant business,” he says. He remarried in 2001 (and now has two daughters, Emerson, 8, and Delilah, 11, with wife Lori) and did some consulting in area restaurants. Then, seven years ago, he and his sister-in-law Carrie Podles, a former bartender at Mother’s Federal Hill Grille, opened Alexander’s. They are still business partners today.

Podles calls Gjerde her “best friend.” “He’s always been there for me,” she says. “He’s such a good guy.

With his older brother’s culinary fame, running a restaurant with the Gjerde name has been a mixed blessing. “When we first opened Alexander’s, a lot of the symphony crowd came in, and I’m like, ‘This is going to be a disaster,’” says Gjerde. “The reviews were pretty straightforward that we were a casual Fells Point bar, and they would come in, and, in the beginning, we struggled to find waiters who could open a bottle of wine.” Adds Podles, “You can see it in their faces when they come or they’ll name drop and mention Woodberry Kitchen. We’ve never tried to be Woodberry Kitchen. We’ve never tried to be more than we are—a fun place with better than usual bar food, but some people think this is Spike’s place.”

The opening of Papi’s has been met with the same set of expectations. “When we took over Papi’s,” says Gjerde, “people started tweeting and doing blogs, saying, ‘I can’t wait to see what the other Gjerde brother is doing,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, no. Here we go again.’”

To this day, Gjerde finds it amusing that when both Woodberry and Alexander’s opened within a few months of each other in 2007, “it took Spike forever to open Woodberry, and in the time he was working, we flipped Alexander’s and opened it.” The ultimate imprimatur? “We got 3 1/2 stars from [then Sun restaurant critic] Elizabeth Large, and she gave Spike three, so I love to rub that in,” he says. “We still laugh about it.”

For now, Charlie Gjerde is more than happy being a success in his own right. “It worked for me to take time off, and now I’m feeling really inspired,” he says. “I love this business, but the stress of running all those businesses dragged me down. I feel like I’m in a better place now.” Is there regret about not being a part of Spike’s stratospheric accomplishments? “People ask me all the time if it’s hard for me not to be a part of his success,” says Gjerde, “and, honest to God, I don’t miss it. I go to Woodberry and try to see if I can picture myself there, and I don’t want to be a part of it other than sitting there and eating.”

Shoo-Fly Diner is not your typical Double T. There are no club sandwiches, no over-easy eggs, no buttered white-bread toast. Instead, owners Spike and Amy Gjerde—they’re practically household names these days because of their other power places, including Woodberry Kitchen—follow their social consciences to serve made-from-scratch, farm-fresh, locally sustained comfort food in a cute setting with possibly the sweetest servers in town. And what’s not to like about a restaurant that has a playroom for the kids? It’s as family-friendly as your own house except that someone else cleans up.

But not everything works at the eatery. The food is very brown, a lot of it fried, but when it scores, you’re happy to be there. The fried-chicken supper, a signature dish, is an example. The crisp, succulent pieces are tucked into a cast-iron skillet and accompanied by a rich gravy on the side. We could have skipped the cornbread, though, with its dense, hockey-puck-like consistency.

We started with Arkansas truffles—don’t be afraid to ask what they are. Who would know they are fried-pickle slices? They were crunchy and yummy, especially dipped into a fish-pepper ranch dressing in a baby-doll-size Mason jar.

The hush doggies—deep-fried, savory-sausage oblongs—were flavorful, too, with honey-mustard sauce. Of course, you can always douse your food with Spike Gjerde’s signature snake-oil sauce (a fish-pepper condiment) if you really need to spice it up.

Sandwiches include an oyster po’boy, grilled cheddar, and a scrappledelphia with scrapple as a key ingredient. Large plates feature meatloaf, spaghetti Bolognese, and a terrific pan-roasted catfish with baked grits and assorted pickled veggies.

Kids get a nod with offerings like mac ’n’ cheese, griddled PB&J, a garden salad, and a chocolate-chip waffle.

Shoo-Fly’s namesake pie is so-so. We’d much rather indulge in the Mast Brothers chocolate pudding. It’s a bowl of velvety-smooth goodness with a creamy topping.

The restaurant may not have the “wow” factor of its Woodberry Kitchen sibling, but it suits a neighborhood need for a chummy place to gather with family and friends.

›› Shoo-Fly Diner, 510 E. Belvedere Ave., 410-464-9222. Hours: 4 p.m.-1 a.m. daily; breakfast, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat.-Sun; snacks: $4-10; sandwiches: $7-16; large plates: $13-19; desserts: $4-10.