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For me Charleston still sits at the pinnacle of "fine dining" in Baltimore. For better or worse, the East Harbor location is now ultra-trendy, close by the water (ask to sit in the front if you want a view) and steps from several other chi-chi restaurants like Roys and Flemings and all that is Fells Point. Inside is serenity itself: richly appointed, comfortable and refined. Do not bring young children. Don't even think about it. The menu is split between prix fixe and a la carte. I enjoy Cindy Wolf's cornmeal crusted oysters - six or seven for a first course with lemon-cayenne mayonnaise are reason enough for me to go. The cornmeal fried soft shell crabs are amazing too. Sauteed and served in a bright lemony brown butter, they need and get nothing but the few dressed greens upon which they perch in oozing glory. Grilled gulf shrimp with Andouille sausage and cubes of salty tasso ham over stone-milled grits are a perennial menu favorite. I'm no Southerner, grits ain't me, but these grits is great! The fried green tomato "sandwich" (ok, stack) with lobster and lump crab hash includes tiny perfect cubes of Yukon gold potatoes and a healthy pinch of curry. Oh yes. Entrees are wonderful, but this time it was straight to dessert. Cheesecake with apricot compote. A ramekin-size light cheesecake on a bed of roasted chopped pecans was very good, but apricots are my favorite fruit and the intensely tart/sweet compote surrounding the cake was the best I've had.

So they have twitter account stating that this place is opening in Baltimore November 11th at the Four Seasons hotel. I have no opinion on this.

I'll be staying at the Inner Harbor during the next two nights, and I need help in terms of dining. Where should I dine? Charleston? Anywhere in Little Italy? Greektown on Eastern Avenue? It doesn't need to be fancy, but it needs to be good - tomorrow (Saturday), and the next day (Sunday) would be of great help - can anyone come up with suggestions? I've been to Matthew's Pizza twice recently, so I'm somewhat Matthew's-Pizza'd out - Price isn't an issue IF it's rocking-good, but I'd rather pay $50 a person for great Greek cuisine than $150 a person for mediocre upscale dining.

per Tagliata website. I was drawn in by the squid ink campanelle - with peekytoe crab, sea urchin cream sauce, chili, basil, & breadcrumbs. The pasta was wonderful, and so was the crab meat. The cream sauce had no discernible sea urchin flavor though 😥 The bolognese was also an excellent pasta dish. I would say their small selection of pastas are equal if not better than Cinghiale. The chicken parm was decent.

I finally got around to try Cinghiale near the harbor. It's an Italian restaurant that is part of Cindy Wolf's Charleston group in Baltimore. The place divided into 2 sections, the more casual bistro-like Osteria, and the fancy Enoteca. However, you can order off both menus no matter where you sit. Since we were more slobbed out, we ate in the Osteria, but I ended up ordering off the Enoteca menu, which is like a prix fixe that you can also add wine pairings with each course. The food was really delicious- I started with La Carne Cruda- a raw veal tenderloin topped with poached quail egg. My next course was some boar ravioli with a brown butter sauce. The main dish was amazing - Il Maiale- a roasted Berkshire pork rack with red wine sauce, grilled peaches and an arugula salad. My dining companions had a pretty amazing heirloom tomato salad with gorgonzola. All in all, it's definitely got the impressive food the Charleston group is known for. Pics

I'm spending the night at Admiral Fells Inn just to check this place out. The menu looks as creative as Del Campo when it first opened, but slightly cheaper. Will report back later.

Has anyone been to the Baltimore location? This was a staple when I was a Student at Syracuse University in the late 90's. I loved that their menu listed occasions they cater for: weddings, divorces, etc.

Have actually been a few times to Bagby as it was a favorite of my sister-in-law when she lived in the area. They have nice thin crust pizzas and are pretty quick on service. Decent variety of local beers as well. The other night we had the gourmet meat and gourmet vegetarian pizzas plus spinach and caesar salads. Salads are nice shareable portions. While wood fired, it is not neapolitan style, and does not make any pretenses to be. It has a more sturdy crust than what I have experienced with neapolitan, but is still very crispy without getting tough. Toppings are fairly generous, especially noticeable on the vegetarian with lots of artichokes. This would be ideal if you are in the area with kids and need a quick not too expensive bite to eat away form the chain restaurants.

So Apropoe's is a at its core a hotel restaurant, though it tries to give all pretenses not to be. It is stylish with extensive lounge seating with a large bar area in addition to dining near the large windows fronting the harbor. It is very dark, but the tables have lights about two feet over them that they turn on when someone is seated there. Upon arrival, we were greeted as indifferently as possible by the hostess. Not a great start to the evening and led to my own uninspired choice for dinner. I had the Poe burger, which was really just scary because it was so ineptly prepared. Requested to be cooked medium it came out well done and very hot all the way through. After two bites, it fell apart completely and a quarter of it rolled off of the table and onto the floor. The accompanying herb fries were lukewarm and had few of the promised herbs. Wife was happier with her pumpkin bisque and duck quesadilla, though she felt the amount of duck in it was excessive relative to the other components. I guess there are worse complaints one could have than too much duck. Kids pizza was clearly from a food service pizza crust as the kids portion was a full pizza cut in half. Went into the restaurant with high hopes that it might be a decent restaurant that happened to be located in our hotel. Turned out to be a typical hotel restaurant instead.

Roy's proved to be a perfect spot for a surprise birthday dinner we attended last night. We were obviously not the only people who thought so, as there were numerous birthdays being observed during the time we were there. I had not heard of the restaurant before this, but the host and guest of honor had eaten at other locations and wanted to try the Baltimore one. Seeing how many locations there are, I'm wondering why I'd never heard of it before . From the moment we arrived at the valet stand outside, service was pleasant, attentive, and overall quite good. It took a little while for our table to be ready, but that ended up playing into the surprise element in an amusing way. Before we left, our server took a group photo and presented it to the guest of honor in a frame. Our server had to shout to our table to be heard over the din in the dining room, as did other servers at nearby tables. It was very loud, but that was the biggest downside of the experience. Despite our being a table of 10, no food or drink (over three courses and several rounds of beverages) was auctioned off. Maybe the bar has been set too low, but I was impressed . It certainly speaks well for the level of training employed by the chain and this particular restaurant. Dishes for each course did not come out all at once, but several at a time, though the gap between deliveries was quite short. Additionally, the guest of honor changed seats after the main course, and her dessert, with candle, was delivered to her (by a manager, I think) at her new spot with no hesitation. The food was pretty good but expensive. Judging from how much everyone ate, I'm going to conclude a general level of satisfaction. I can't speak to many specifics except for what I ate, but there were a couple of comments about the macadamia-crusted mahi mahi being a bit dry, and the sashimi platter arrived without the expected pickled ginger. My husband and I split the Aloha Roll (spicy tuna roll topped with hamachi, salmon, and avocado), which is one of their signature items. At 8 pieces, it was a good amount of sushi to start the meal. Others ordered the Baha Roll (hamachi topped with tuna and jalapeno pesto), which is one of the Baltimore location's own offerings. The server sold the table on the canoe appetizer, another one of the signature items (Szechuan pork ribs, blackened ahi, sesame shrimp, spicy tempura salmon roll and kobe beef lumpia). Given the number of people in our party, we probably would have ordered it even if he hadn't suggested it, though. The ribs were very good, with a nice depth of flavor. The lumpia was also tasty, while the shrimp seemed a bit lackluster. I enjoyed the hibachi style salmon with ponzu sauce I got as a main (served with a salad of cucumber and radish with a vinagery dressing and plain white rice), though I couldn't finish it. Cooked medium, as suggested, the salmon was moist and flaky. Almost everyone ordered their signature Melting Hot Chocolate Souffle except my husband and me (he got the cranberry mandarin orange cobbler and I passed on dessert; I prefer to frontload my calories ). Everyone seemed quite satisfied with the chocolate dessert, and I think my husband wishes he had ordered it. We sat at the table for a good long time after paying, and this seems to be the kind of restaurant where that is not a problem, making it another plus for this type of occasion. (Many of the people hadn't seen each other in a long time.) The food was better than average for chain cuisine. Other than the noise level, the atmosphere and service were perfectly fine. I don't know that I would walk in off the street for a meal here, but I'd certainly go with a group again, even with the high price tag. (I don't know how many walk-ins they can accommodate. There was quite a wait on a Saturday night"”one fairly large walk-in group was told the wait time was two hours. There were a couple of bars for dining, as well.)

A new branch of Cava Mezze opened in Baltimore today at 1302 Fleet St.(via Cava Mezze's tweet).

I went to LAMILL Coffee inside the Four Seasons, just adjacent to Wit & Wisdom this weekend for breakfast. Pastry chef Chris Ford is responsible for a lot of the pastry and food at this location as well. I had a nice cafe con leche to start. We tried the delicious bacon cheddar scone, the beignets with lemon curd to dip them in, and a cinnamon brioche macaroon. The macaroon was large- about 2 inches in diameter. At 11am, With & Wisdom's kitchen also supplies some savory options like an egg mcmuffin using Benton's ham.

I'm very much looking forward to a Japanese restaurant run by an actual Japanese chef in Baltimore. Most places are currently Korean or Chinese run sushi & roll places. Pubu, Japanese for "pub", located in the Four Seasons at Harbor East is scheduled to open next week. They are planning to serve izakaya style food from chef Michael Mina and chef Ken Tominga (Hana in Sonoma). I'm thinking of making it a dinner for Mother's Day weekend. I will certainly report back.

The just opened restaurant, Vino Rosina, located in the Harbor East area of town is helmed by former Top Chef contestant Jesse Scandlin, formerly of Abacrombie. The concept is supposed to be a wine bar with tapas dishes. 507 S. Exeter (Bagby bldg) (410) 528-8600