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.

OPEN

Gangster Vegan Organics: A franchise of Gangster Vegan Organics will open in Cross Street Market on August 23. The menu will include items that are organic, unprocessed, raw, soy, and gluten-free. The spot is owned by husband-wife duo, James and Taneea Yarborough. Taneea is a survivor of ovarian cancer who switched to a plant-based diet as part of her wellness regime.

FOOD NEWS

Ekiben Pop-Up at Fadensonnen: Steve Chu and his business partner Ephrem Abibe at Ekiben are launching a new Taiwanese noodle bar pop-up at Lane Harlan’s Fadensonnen in Old Goucher every Wednesday, for the next six weeks. The new project is called Ojichan, which means grandad in Japanese. Look for handmade wheat noodles with ground pork, scallions, and soy egg. The noodles are served cold to retain their bouncy texture and served with a warm broth. “Ephrem and I had a hankering for the super bouncy noodles we had in Taiwan, but couldn’t find in America, so we decided to make them,” said Chu on his Instagram page. The announcement of the pop-up led one Instagrammer to comment, “You guys are public servants.”

New Beer Garden: A beer garden is planned for the 108-year-old American Ice Building at 2100 West Franklin Street in West Baltimore. The space will include an events area and art hub under a proposed $18.7 million project, according to the Baltimore Business Journal. “It is a diamond in the rough,” Washington D.C. developer Ilay Alter recently told the BBJ. Alter has partnered with local developer Bill Struever who has rehabbed many area industrial sites including the Woodberry-Hampden area of Baltimore, where Woodberry Kitchen is now located. Alter opened a similar such space the Dacha Beer Garden on a vacant lot in D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood in 2013.

Tapas Teatro: The beloved tapas spot in Station North is undergoing a renovation. A new bar area will create more space for a communal table, larger parties, and a new look.

EPICUREAN EVENTS

7/25: La Cuchara Farm Dinner with the Maryland Farmers Market Association and Hex Ferments

La Cuchara is hosting a farmer’s market dinner in conjunction with the Maryland Farmers Market Association and Hex Ferments on Sunday, from 5-8 p.m. Dinner will include a map of the Saturday and Sunday Baltimore farmers markets showing where some of the ingredients for the meal are sourced from. Hex Ferments will provide cocktail pairings and a portion of proceeds will support the Maryland Market Money program, which provides matching dollars to low-income families who use their benefit at area farmers markets.

7/25: Col Bol Pop-Up at Grind House Juice Bar

Chef Carleen Goodridge of Le Monade will host a pop up called Col Bol, which means “cold bowl.” The event will take place this Sunday at 11 a.m. at Grind House Juice Bar on Saint Paul’s Street. Carleen is honoring her Liberian heritage with dishes like eggplant stew and cassava leaf and plantain porridge.

7/29: Chez Hugo Collaborates with Sacré Sucré

Chez Hugo Bistro will collaborate with Sacré Sucré pastry studio for a six-course tasting menu with all things sweet and savory. Each kitchen will present three courses. Look for dishes such as a blackberry crisp tuile with buckwheat cream, candied beets, and preserved summer fruit and fromage blanc and corn cheesecake with cornbread crumbs, pepper jam, fermented honey, and glazed fresh corn. The cost of the tasting menu is $50. The event runs from 7-9 p.m.

Happy Birthday to You!

Area restaurants celebrate big numbers.

City Café turns 25 on Sept. 4.

The Helmand turns 30 this fall.

Mt. Washington Tavern kicks off its 40 years in business celebration this November.

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

Walk through the doors of pretty much any restaurant these days and you’re sure to spot menu items in sweeping curlicues and block-like shading on chalkboards behind the bar. Or perhaps folding chalkboards greet you on the sidewalk as you come in, hoping to titillate your taste buds with the specials of the day.

Woodberry Kitchen server Serina Hoff takes the art form a step further. For nearly five years, she has transformed chalkboards into menu masterpieces. Working mostly on slate and using chalkboard paint and acrylics that yield a thick, painterly stroke, she has created Monet-style sunsets, likenesses of Parisian cafes, even a graphic show of support for France after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack.

Though she has always loved art, and was especially drawn to lettering during her childhood in California, the self-trained Hoff didn’t realize her talents until she was working as a server at Petit Louis Bistro, following a move to Baltimore after college.

“I remember the day we got the chalkboards,” Hoff says. “I knew I could be ornate and really give life to those boards, and one day, they needed to be changed and I was around—that’s when it started.”

At first, Hoff simply wrote the menu, but soon branched out to explore themes culturally related to France, using as inspiration iconic French artworks and old-fashioned advertisements depicting scenes of Victorian cafe life. Her works—which could take up to five hours to complete—took on a painterly quality that had patrons raving. “One customer used to show me his phone and the background was one of my boards,” she says. “They became like pieces of art.”

Hoff moved on from Louis to serving stints at Sticky Rice, where she continued to script and paint menu boards, and Cinghiale. And, these days, while Woodberry does not need her slate services (their menus are strictly printed on paper), she’s currently beautifying the boards at Hampden’s Blue Pit BBQ & Whiskey Bar, one of her favorite places to visit when she’s not on the clock.

Ironically, one of the best parts of chalk painting, Hoff says, is knowing that her work won’t last. “I usually erase it myself, because I absolutely love the impermanence,” she says. “I think that’s when you’re allowed to do your best work. When you know that something is impermanent, you’re letting go.”

The first thing you notice about Amy Gjerde is her undeniable beauty: her long, thin limbs and gazelle-like grace, the perfect symmetry of her face, her bouncy brunette hair that seems straight from the pages of an Aveda shampoo commercial, her watery blue eyes that deepen when she wells up, which happens fairly often. Gjerde herself is reserved, and maybe that’s because when you look the way she does, all eyes are on you—whether the attention is invited or not. “I’m not the most comfortable in social situations,” she says. “When I was growing up, I always felt awkward and disheveled. I didn’t have a sense of style, and the fact that I like clothes and makeup didn’t come from inside the house—I grew into myself.” Like most of us, Gjerde is still a work in progress, shedding her shyness and finding her voice at age 46. For the co-owner of Woodberry Kitchen, Artifact Coffee, Sandlot, Bird in Hand, A Rake’s Progress in Washington, D.C., and partner at Foodshed, the restaurant group’s umbrella organization, the past few years have been challenging, to say the least.

In 2015, after discovering that her husband, the James Beard Award-winning chef Spike Gjerde, arguably Maryland’s most famous culinary figure, was having an affair, her idyllic life—a successful career, two kids, pedigree pets, an American Institute of Architects award-winning Roland Park home—imploded.

Making matters worse was the fact that her employees knew about the affair before she did. “One person in all of those months could have said something to me,” she says, still sounding mystified. “One person could have told me—and that person could have been him,” she says, referring to her ex. “It makes it seem like it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

And while the details of the relationship—a younger woman who was an employee Gjerde had worked closely with at the time—eventually came to light, she says that once the initial shock wore off, she was left with a different, deeper agony. “What I go back to with Spike is the fact that the affair was painful at first, but what becomes the most painful is the stuff between the two of you while the affair is happening—the memories of Thanksgiving that year or a wedding anniversary. It’s imagining all the stuff they did together. It’s what happened between you while that lie is being perpetrated that’s most painful.” And then there was the irony of the timing. At the time that Gjerde learned about the affair, the trailblazing chef was at the pinnacle of his career, winning the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic. Gjerde contemplated not going to the award ceremony held in Chicago that year, but she decided to stand by his side. “I don’t know how I did it,” she says. “I didn’t want to do anything to hurt Woodberry, and I was excited for the staff and for Opie [Crooks, the restaurant’s then head chef]. I thought that the award was larger than Spike—I believed that. I wanted to see it as a healing thing. In the end, it wasn’t.” Instead, emboldened by the #MeToo movement, Gjerde’s healing process has entailed speaking her truth—including the painful parts—and living her life out loud. Raw and reeling in the aftermath of the wreckage, she posted her feelings on social media. It raised a few eyebrows at the time, but she continued to put it all out there. “People view talking about it as wrong,” says Gjerde. “I don’t believe that to be true. Just because his acts were private and hidden and secret doesn’t mean that I have to mirror that and suffer in private and not share if I think that it either helps me or helps someone else.”

The sharing—and airing—has brought some relief, she says. “There were women messaging me who were in the same situation, strangers and then some women that I knew well who had said, ‘I was treated the same way,’” she says. “It was cathartic. I’d never spoken up before. I was never like that—and I don’t regret it.”

For his part, Spike, who has never spoken publicly about the affair, says he does have regrets. “In spite of the fact that we created and were running this amazing thing that we loved and both of us put our hearts and souls into, I had become unhappy in our marriage—but I didn’t know it—that was the worst part,” he says. “I was a deeply unhappy person—I didn’t allow myself to have that realization. I made the worst mistake that someone in that position can make, and I still feel remorse every day about her pain and suffering and this long road that Amy has been traveling.”

Celery juice, turmeric, kombucha, and activated charcoal might sound like items from your local health food store or cold-pressed juice stand. But lately, these ingredients are showing up on area menus as part of a national trend toward more health-conscious cocktails. “Baltimore is a little behind on this movement, but you’re starting to see it more and more,” says Gino Kozera, who just opened coffee and beer cafe Amber in Locust Point. “Trying to use as much natural, non-GMO, and fresh fruit as possible is a part of our ethos.”

Amber highlights drinks concocted with locally made Wild Kombucha flavors such as elderberry in the Gin Fizz or grapefruit-ginger that’s mixed with rye in the Port Authority. There’s also the St. Pablo, a rum drink containing honey and cayenne pepper—ingredients usually associated with a cleanse.

Of course, it should be noted that no alcoholic drink is 100 percent good for you. But national brands such as Ketel One’s new all-natural botanical products with cucumber and fresh-squeezed peach are trying to help consumers drink more responsibly by veering away from artificial flavors. Even a recent Crown Royal commercial encourages its viewers to take a “water break” while watching NFL games.

“Fully embracing wellness and finding ways to live a healthier lifestyle is something you’re seeing more of in the industry,” says Ginny Lawhorn, who runs Baltimore Cocktail Week and the bar at Landmark Theatre in Harbor East (which offers a drink made with activated charcoal). “Bartending is no longer a pay-my-rent-while-I-can job. People are now in it as a career and thinking about their own health and longevity.” Lawhorn’s most recent Cocktail Week included an all-day series of wellness workshops—including a yoga flow followed by conversations centered around nutrition—at R. House hosted by bar manager Amie Ward.

That industry passion is translating to consumers. It’s something we’ve seen in older institutions—like Woodberry Kitchen and Wit & Wisdom, which use fresh juices and even have mocktail menus—and new establishments alike. The recently opened Vida Taco Bar in Harbor Point has a carrot juice cocktail, and The Regal Beagle in Canton makes the Between Two Ferns with celery juice and black pepper and Daytime Drama with a turmeric cordial.

“Just as cuisine has gone farm-to-table, cocktail programs have gone garden-to-glass,” Lawhorn says. “Beets were very popular for a while, turmeric is now, charcoal is a mixed bag of opinions. The overall goal is using little to no sugar while still maximizing flavor.”

As with any trend, there is a limit (we’ve come across distilled non-alcoholic spirits, which gave us a moment of pause) and the pendulum is likely to swing back. But for now, we’re really enjoying feeling like a saint while we sin—and the easier hangovers are certainly a plus.

To say that Amy Gjerde has a green thumb is a bit of an understatement. Gjerde, co-owner of Woodberry Kitchen, Artifact, Parts & Labor, Sandlot, and Bird in Hand, grows hundreds of plants and herbs not only for decorative purposes, but also for use in the kitchens of her farm-to-fork spots. “Plants can take an ordinary, unassuming space and make it colorful and interesting,” says Gjerde, “and they make the air around them fresher and lighter.”

Gjerde says she loves the endless diversity of plants that are out there. “Adding plants to a space brings with it a mysterious, ‘I wonder what that is’ feeling,” she says. “When I walk into my greenhouse, especially in the winter, I instantly feel happier, calmer, and more connected.” In the doldrums of winter, we caught up with the constant gardener to discuss the art of growing. 

What kinds of plants do you grow for your restaurants?   
At Woodberry, I grow a mix of herbs (chives, basil, thai basil, sage, rosemary, lavender, scented geranium, lemongrass), and mostly perennials like false indigo, St. John’s wort, and grasses. Over the years, I’ve gotten away from annuals with the exception of coleus, which this year I grew from seed. I also love to incorporate shrubs and trees like Crepe Myrtle, Beautyberry, and hydrangea. At Artifact, the sun is very intense so I’ve moved to plants which need a less water and can withstand the heat. A couple of years ago, I planted roses. Amazingly enough they have thrived and are stunning! My favorite herb to grow at Artifact is bronze fennel. The fronds are adored by our chefs, and then in the fall we winnow the seed. 

Where do you do the actual growing?
I grow most of my herbs for the restaurant at my home in Roland Park. About a year ago, I had a greenhouse built. It’s only 11’ x 12’ but it allows me to start seed, grow tropicals, and propagate. In addition to herbs, citrus is the big crop I enjoy growing for our places. Two to three years we stopped using citrus in all of our restaurants. I’ve been able to grow Meyer lemons, limes, calamondin, and I’m starting with some oranges and one grapefruit tree. This past summer, I sold herbs I grew from seed at P&L, as well as tomatoes from seed. 

I know you grow a lot of basil. I had no idea there was more than a few types.
At home, I grow 9 to 10 varieties of basil—Holy, Thai, Mrs. Burn’s lemon, Persian, Mammoth, Eritrean, Cardinal, cinnamon, and Blue Spice. I have so many basil plants in my greenhouse, there will probably be casualties to make room for the citrus as it gets colder. I planted a front yard garden this year with lots of nasturtiums, variegated sage, apple mint, amaranth, tomatoes, strawberries, blackberries, onions, wild oregano, thyme, orange mint, Goldenrod, and shishito peppers. I was nervous about the amount of shade I get, but the garden did well. I’m probably going to skip tomatoes this year, though. I added shiso to the mix this year. Spike has always loved shiso, from the mint family, so I gave it a try. I’m growing Shiso Britton and Shiso Asia. Woodberry Kitchen has been using the green shiso the past couple of months by wrapping trout and chanterelles in the big leaves. 

Are they mostly herbs used in cooking/for drinks or are they decorative, as well? 
What I grow for the restaurant’s ends up either with the chefs, Rachel our pastry chef, or our bar. Herbs end up being used, and sometimes fought over, by all three, especially sweet mint. My Meyer lemons, calamondin and limes typically go to the bar and made into tinctures. Last year, I filled jars with local honey and Meyer lemons, as well as calamondin. Our baristas snapped it up and made this delicious hot tea drink. When you don’t have availability to an ingredient widely used as citrus, the excitement over having five lemons or 15 calamondin is enjoyable and satisfying to watch. 

Do you maintain the plants yourself?
Mostly, I have an awesome assistant, Fred Struever. Fred helps me take plants back and forth to my home (I often pot the plants at home and then arrange them at the restaurants), helps with compost, from Ben at Blue Moon, and he’s especially great at helping keep my greenhouse going. The staff at the restaurants help by watering. José at Artifact is my sympatico gardener. 

What do you like about gardening? 
The physicality, being outdoors, and the satisfaction of watching a plant grow and thrive. I’m still amazed at how something goes from a seed to an herb or citrus fruit or vegetable we use in our kitchens.  

What’s the secret to being a good gardener? Do you talk to your plants?
When people tell me I have a green thumb, I look at them and say, ‘Really?’ I think it’s like everything in life, when you are doing something you truly love, the people—or plants—around you benefit. I definitely don’t talk to my plants, but I’m always thinking good thoughts around them.

“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.”

Though Paul Benkert is a native Marylander, he spent time in Portland, Oregon, bartending at the now closed jazz bar Vie de Boheme.

Now back in Baltimore, and after a year-and-a-half stint at Woodberry Kitchen, Benkert is anxious to fuse a bit of the two cities—plus his intense passion for the written word—into his new bar, The Bluebird Cocktail Room.

“Instead of working in places where the atmosphere or the drinks aren’t 100-percent me, we made a bar we want to be in all the time,” Benkert says.

Set to open by July, The Bluebird is located on the third floor of 3602 Hickory Avenue in Hampden in a massive 3,000-square-foot space that used to host gallery nights and comedy shows. Benkert and his team have really transformed the space—a floor above Belgian beer bar De Kleine Duivel—working with an architect to expose the building’s windows, refinish the floors, renovate the drop ceiling, and replace a stage with a gas fireplace.

The Bluebird—which can comfortably seat 104—consists of dark navy blue walls, a long bar, 12 bistro tables, two large communal tables, and corner lounges by the fireplace. The idea is to “make your own experience” and Benkert is instilling a Portland-inspired model to ensure that service flows.

“We’re only going to have bartenders and barbacks,” he explains. “There’s a dedicated place to order drinks and a dedicated person to make them. Food is pub-style where each person gets a number and barbacks bring you water, silverware, and food. You’re still getting a personalized service, but this gives everyone a little more room to breathe.”

Besides the innovative service element, The Bluebird’s most apparent focus is the literary theme—seen in everything from its name based on a Charles Bukowski poem or a shelf where people can borrow and add books.

“Paul is a published author and I am an English lit major,” says bar manager Ben Poole, who met Benkert while the two worked at Woodberry Kitchen. “We found a way to combine our love of reading and drinking.” 

Quite literally, since bar’s cocktail menu will read like an eight-page book a “table of contents” of simple drink descriptions with references to more detail in the back. The menu is divided into four chapters: simple, more complex, long sippers, and after-dinner drinks. Each cocktail will have a literary-inspired twist like the Mrs. Dalloway named after the Virginia Woolf novel or, not surprisingly, an authentic version of a Hemingway daiquiri.

“This is just how he would have drank it, except he would request way more rum,” Benkert says with a laugh. “We researched a bit and found out that Hemingway actually liked his daiquiris over crushed ice. The bartenders in Cuba would put their ice in linens and beat the crap out of it with a rubber mallet.” 

Rubber mallets aside, the ice program is a central focus at Bluebird (a trend you can read more about in Baltimore’s upcoming July issue). Benkert bought an ice machine that produces a 300-pound block of ice that can be carved, crushed, or cubed depending on the drink.

“Shaking a cocktail with just one cube increases aeration or using one long rectangular piece of ice in a collins glass prevents dilution,” Benkert explains. “It’s just little things like this that we geek out about, but will also make a better customer experience.” 

But before Baltimore purists eschew the bar as too fancy, consider other details like the $3 Natty Boh. Or that there will be four porch swings with open windows in the bar’s entrance for guests to sip drinks and people-watch onto The Avenue. 

Better still is the bar’s Monday-Friday happy hour where a draft cocktail is $5 and small plates are half off until 7 p.m. The food menu is reasonably priced, too, and consists of “European bistro food” like fritto misto, fried sweetbreads, charcuterie, cured salmon, and steak frites.

“My biggest sticking point is that we don’t want an entree over $19 and most of our drinks aren’t over $10,” Benkert says. “If my friends can’t even hang out here, then what the hell am I doing?”

The Bluebird’s beer program is also simple, thanks in part to a contract signed with De Kleine Duivel. There will be four draft lines—one light, one dark, one draft cocktail, and one cider made by Distillery Lane Ciderworks outside of  Frederick—and a rotating list of seasonal and local can options. The wine list will have old-world selections of five whites, five reds, and a couple of sparkling and rosé options.

One of the drinks that best encapsulates the vision of the new bar is A Secret Love, named after a Japanese poem. Made with vodka infused with lemongrass (picked from the porch below), Pennsylvania honey, and verjus from Black Ankle Vineyards, the drink will attract Woodberry fans with its local ingredients and intrigue new customers with its complex, earthy flavors.

“We want this bar to be all about what you make of it,” Poole says. “If you want a romantic night of steak and pricey wine, you can do that. But if you want a beer and $6 shot of whiskey, we have that, too.”

Here’s something we’ve noticed: Even the best restaurants sometimes fall apart in the restroom décor department. And maybe it’s just our pet peeve, but when nature calls, there’s nothing worse than a blah bathroom with industrial-scented soap, an empty paper-towel dispenser, and a can of Mediterranean Lavender Febreze for freshening.

But lately, we’ve spotted a trend toward bathrooms with serious style points (not to mention great reading material).

Ekiben

The manga artwork in the lovely loos at this steamed-bun boîte offers a personal connection for co-owners Steve Chu, Nick Yesupriya, and Ephrem Abebe. “All the manga in the bathrooms is manga we actually read—Dragon Ball Z, Naruto,” explains Chu. “The whole restaurant is nostalgia for us. Everything means something—it’s not just thrown together because it looks nice.” It also helps contribute to the authentic ambience. “We wanted to give it an Asian feel,” says Chu. “We wanted the guests to come in and feel like they stepped into a small shop in Taiwan or Tokyo.” 1622 Eastern Ave., 410-558-1914

Woodberry Kitchen

Looking for a great recipe for creamy polenta with grilled vegetables, or perhaps a foolproof guide to making hollandaise? Next time you gotta go, check out the restrooms at Woodberry Kitchen, which are papered with the pages of Gourmet magazine. Though the magazine is no longer in rotation, it lives on at the lavatory. “My mom, Alice, subscribed to Gourmet for years,” says co-owner Gjerde. “And that was the source of her culinary inspiration. Those are all of her Gourmet magazines in our bathrooms. She had them bundled up in the basement for years. I was like, ‘I’ll take them.’” 2010 Clipper Park Road, 410-464-8000

Hamilton Tavern

This Hamilton haunt offers patrons not only one of the best burgers in town, but also a great chance to catch up on the classics. Co-owner Felicia Shakman has papered the W.C.’s walls with writings from literary greats, including Jane Austen, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Mary Shelley for the ladies, and Jack Kerouac and Aldous Huxley for the gents. “Some of them are my old books and a lot of them came from The Book Thing,” explains Shakman. “We wanted this place to be special and fun, and give people food for their bodies—and souls—so they feel nourished in every way.” 5517 Harford Road, 410-426-1930

Smoke

The bathroom “wallpaper” at this barbecue joint is fashioned from the pages of Hit Parade and Circus magazines. After months of clipping interviews with Bon Jovi, the Beastie Boys, Iron Maiden, Alice Cooper, and others, co-owner/manager Keith Thompson, a lifelong musician, turned the pages into a Mod Podge project. “I saw all those ’80s bands at a young age, which fueled my fire to play music,” says Thompson. “[Co-owner] Josh White and I met over music, and I wanted to bring some musical flair to Smoke.” 574 Cranbrook Road, Cockeysville, 410-891-8515

Honorable Mention

While there’s no literary theme here, we’d be remiss if we overlooked the prettiness of the powder rooms at fine-dining mecca Magdalena. The walls are layered in Venetian plaster, the floors are made of limestone cement, and the ceiling, which was eight months in the making, was created by a Moroccan artist who made colorful wood carvings. 205 E. Biddle St., 410-514-0303

Whether you’re a serious water lover, a gung-ho gardener, or a fan of the forest, the Baltimore area is a great place to dine alfresco. So head to one of these standout spots and enjoy your moment in the sun.

For the Patron of the Arts

Gertrude’s Restaurant: There’s outdoor dining, and then there’s the flagstone terrace at Gertrude’s. Painterly plates, such as Gertie’s crab cakes and grilled rockfish, pair perfectly with Henry Moore and Auguste Rodin sculptures. 10 Art Museum Dr., 410-889-3399.

For the Green Thumbs

Ladew Café: With one of the top topiary gardens in the world as your backdrop, feast en plein air on house-made chicken salad and enjoy the groomed gardens once visited by the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Somerset Maugham. 3535 Jarrettsville Pike, Monkton, 410-557-9570.

Woodberry Kitchen: Dine at the herb-filled patio out front. 2010 Clipper Park Road, 410-464-8000

The Turn House: This new HoCo spot, situated on the bucolic Hobbit’s Glen Golf Course, hits a hole-in-one with its inventive farm-to-table cuisine, covered patio offering weatherproof outdoor dining and heat lamps, and a chef (Thomas Zippelli) who worked at the Michelin-starred The French Laundry and Eleven Madison Park before bringing it back to his native Howard County. 11130 Willow Bottom Dr., Columbia, 410-740-2096

For the Craft Beer Aficionado

RAR Brewing: When the temps top out, RAR Brewing raises its retractable garage doors. It’s a known fact that everything—from designer dogs to tater tots—tastes that much better when you let the sun shine in. 504 Poplar St., Cambridge, 443-225-5664.

Blue Pit BBQ & Whiskey Bar: Quaff a cold one and a plate of meat and fixins on the restaurant’s back deck. 1601 Union Ave., 443-948-5590.

For the Urbanite

Tapas Teatro: There’s nothing like watching the street scene while tasting tapas and chilling out over sangria at this beloved Station North cafe. 1711 N. Charles St., 410-332-0110.

Clavel: Grab a crock of queso fundido and seat yourself at a peach picnic table in Remington. 225 W 23rd St., 443-900-8983.

For the Water Lover

Barcocina: It’s hard to beat the picturesque Fells Point harbor views and potent house-made margaritas.1629 Thames St., 410-563-8800.

Boatyard Bar & Grill: This Naptown nook with colorful red umbrellas and killer crab cakes is minutes from the marina and the perfect perch for people-watching—here, you’ll see fishermen, Naval Academy midshipmen, tourists, and locals alike. Severn Avenue and Fourth Street, Annapolis, 410-216-6206

Citron: It took years for the natural rainwater to fill the old quarry in Pikesville. At 500 feet, it’s now the deepest body of water in the state and a sanctuary for geese, ducks, and all manner of flora and fauna. You’ll understand why it was worth the wait as you sit on the patio snacking on tuna tartare at Charles Levine’s contemporary fine-dining venture. 2605 Quarry Lake Drive, Pikesville, 410-363-0900

Cosima: The rushing waters of the Jones Falls, an herb garden filled with rosemary and thyme, a flute of Proseco, and sexy Sicilian noodle dishes spell an ambiance that’s perfect for a little romance. 3000 Falls Road, 443-708-7352

For the Seafood Lover

Loch Bar: Take a front-row seat at this Chesapeake seafood bar and watch the boats bob in the Patapsco. Order a shot of one of the many rare whiskeys on hand, then toast to the inexplicable alchemy of sun, stars, and seafood towers. 240 International Dr., 443-961-8949

Ryleigh’s Oyster: So many outdoor spots in the ’burbs offer nothing but a view of a parking lot. Not so at the suburban outpost of this beloved Baltimore institution. With its hedges and white Adirondack chairs, think Lutherville-Timonium meets the Eastern Shore. 22 W. Padonia Road, Hunt Valley, 410-539-2093

For the Equestrian

The Oregon Grille: Smack dab in the middle of Hunt Valley’s horse country, this well-heeled spot boasts that miles-from-the-city feel. As you take in the natural world, consider a simple Cobb salad or a glass of Sauvignon Blanc from the deep wine list. 1201 Shawan Road, 410-771-0505

Manor Tavern: Gaze at the stars at this equine-themed spot. 15819 Old York Road, 410-771-8155.

The Valley Inn: This bustling Brooklandville tavern boasts a sylvan setting and a patio that’s the perfect place for sipping champagne on tap. 10501 Falls Road, 410-828-0002

The Milton Inn: This historic inn (where John Wilkes Booth learned his A, B, C’s) recently underwent a $400,000 renovation, including the addition of a new patio and a pergola with a retractable roof. 14833 York Road, Sparks, 410-771-4366

Buh-bye boring, baggy black-pants-and-white-shirt combos. Local restaurants are getting as creative with their staff wardrobes as they are with their menus. Here are some of our favorite fashion finds from area kitchens.

Bandanas at Charleston: After losing her locks to breast cancer, chef Cindy Wolf started wearing colorful bandanas to protect her pate, and the kitchen staff showed solidarity by wearing them, too. Eighteen years later, the tradition continues.

Aprons and plaid shirts at Woodberry Kitchen: Vintage aprons (for the women on the waitstaff) and plaid shirts (for the gents) help carry through the farm-to-table focus and homegrown feel.

Under Armour kicks at Azumi: At this Japanese hot spot, red high-tops show hometown pride for the billion-dollar, Baltimore-based brand; also, red is a sacred color in the Land of the Rising Sun.

True blue at Ouzo Bay: The blue ties worn by the waitstaff and bartenders reflect the cerulean coastal waters of the Aegean.

Desert duds at Clavel: Lane Harlan encourages her staff to be playful with the dress code, hence her bartender’s cactus shirt.

Feel the burn at La Cuchara: These bold red aprons invoke the red flag of the Basque Country; the red-and-charcoal-gray palette, including the server’s shirts, were also picked to mimic the colors inside the restaurant’s wood-burning grill.