by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Red Emma’s is a bookstore, a performance venue, and a café. Most of all, though, Red Emma’s is a salon. Before the word was co-opted by beauticians, it meant a place where people get together for conversation, usually of an intellectual, artistic, or political nature. And that’s exactly what Red Emma’s is. You may think you’re going in for a bagel and a ‘zine, but you’ll probably end up gabbing with people at the tables,

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

All hail the magic power of tea! The drink that can be a warming stimulant, perfect for keeping us going through the sluggish days of winter, is just the thing to cool us down and mellow us out when the temperature climbs perilously close to 100 degrees.
For our latest escape from the elements, Ann and I chose Teavolve, Fells Point’s atypically urbane “contemporary tea lounge” in Fells Point. (The business began life as

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

There are definite advantages to eating at Harborplace.
First, of course, are fireworks. If you haven’t secured your reservation for the fourth, good luck!
Also, in no particular order, are people-watching (a cross-section of the world’s population seems to be strolling on the promenade on any given evening, many with adorable babies in tow), tall ships (awe-inspiring vessels from India and Brazil, on our last visit), and free entertainment (if the conversation dwindles,

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com
“You can’t break up with me! I took you to Tio Pepe!”
A friend of mine received this complaint when she dared to dump the boyfriend who had fêted her at that era’s big-deal restaurant. And I would imagine that a man of today would feel similarly aggrieved were he to get the bad news after a dinner at Kali’s Court.
Kali’s is, first of all, richly romantic; its dining room is

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Ask local restaurant buffs to name their favorite places to dine, and Chameleon Café is sure to pop up at the top of many lists. The Lauraville charmer may not be the most high-profile restaurant in town, but its winning combination of down-home sweetness and top-tier gourmet cooking makes it irresistible. It has even been credited with ramping up the desirability of its neighborhood, which has more appealing dining and shopping venues—and way-higher real estate

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

BOP was the first of Baltimore’s yuppie pizzerias. A true creation of the Eighties, it offered trendy Spago-style toppings and sophisticated décor—I called BOP “a deco urban fantasy” in a 1988 review that still hangs in the restaurant—instead of mustachioed cartoon pizza chefs. BOP also sported endorsements from such visiting celebs as Luciano Pavarotti and David Byrne.

Well it’s been a while, and as BOP had somehow fallen off the personal radar screen of late,

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Ethiopian food is not for the prissy.

Does the very idea of eating with your hands from a communal platter give you the vapors? Just wait: there’s more! As you brush fingertips with your tablemates, using torn-off bits of spongy flatbread to grab at morsels of intensely-colored, intensely-flavored and intensely-spiced stews, you will most certainly be putting your manicure and your snowy shirt-cuffs, as well as your dignity, into jeopardy.

Sounds like fun to me!

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Wait long enough, and everything comes back into style. And the style of the Fifties is making a chic comeback on the restaurant scene.

No, I’m not talking about Elvis-happy diners, but hip, upscale foodie-friendly eateries. Following on the heels of Brasserie Tatin’s Eisenhower swank comes Jack’s Bistro, which honors the era not only in its look—the artwork amusingly references Fifties magazine illustration—but in its food.

Although owner/chef Ted Stelzenmuller is a relative youngster (the

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Note: Have a comment on this article? Post it at www.baltimoreguide.com.

The first thing I noticed at Sammy’s Trattoria was…a Christmas tree. Draped with glowing white lights, it sits near the bar; more lights are twined in the evergreens garlanding the balcony’s decorative ironwork.

Now, I know that some folks just don’t want to let the season go. But at Sammy’s, these tastefully festive grace notes work. After all, Sammy’s itself is a gift of

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Note: Have a comment on this article? Post it at www.baltimoreguide.com.
I usually do dinner instead of lunch for my reviews meals, but a recent visit to Fells Point had me seeking out a restaurant at the noon hour. I had a good excuse, though: I was escaping from pirates.

It was Privateer Day, and the square was teeming with pirates: scurvy pirates, foppish pirates, buxom-wench pirates, dueling pirates, pirates singing sea chanteys (accompanied,

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Joe Squared Bar & Pizza is anything but square. In fact, the word “quirky” might have been coined for the kind of place that serves Buffalo wings with chocolate and walnut sauce.
Named for owner Joe Edwardsen and the shape of his pizzas, Joe’s is a study in contrasts—and eccentricity. It’s a bar on a semi-divey block, but it has gained a reputation for really good, interesting food. (The Slow Food group meets there.)

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Talk about your dream jobs! Ann Nault was once executive chef at Clint Eastwood’s Mission Ranch in California’s gorgeous Monterrey wine country. That certainly sounds dreamy enough for me, but like most chefs she longed for her own restaurant…and she found it, right here in Baltimore. As chef-proprietor of Taste, in Belvedere Square, she has introduced locals to her own breezy cross-cultural brand of contemporary cooking—not to mention giving us the perfect opportunity to say

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

When Hampton’s recently bit the dust, much of the eulogizing referred not to the spectacular food, but to the fact that the Harbor Court’s signature restaurant was one of the last places in town where people routinely dressed to the nines for a dinner out, and where the only people you saw who were not all gussied up were visiting movie stars.

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Every person’s notion of “comfort food” is a little bit different, depending on childhood experiences and ethnic background. But there does seem to be a certain unanimity about the comforting properties of the grilled cheese sandwich. A whole lot of us must have been greeted by our moms, after a particularly hard day at school, with grilled cheese and a bowl of tomato soup.
We must need plenty of comforting these days, as even

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Frankie doesn’t live here anymore.

At Pazza Luna, once a veritable shrine to Sinatra-love, you can still catch him on the sound system, and if you look around the main floor dining room—remodeled, but still moon-and-stars romantic—you’ll find his image on a light switch. For the most part, though, the newly revived Locust Point restaurant has shed its ties to the guy who once sang “Oh you crazy moon, what have you done?”

However, new

by Lynn Williams
maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Big Bad Wolf’s House of Barbeque gained a certain amount of notoriety when it opened a few years ago. Why? Because The Sun’s Elizabeth Large, not an overly easy-to-please critic, gave it a four-star review. Some members of the foodie community were outraged that a humble Harford Road barbecue joint would garner the sort of acclaim usually reserved for haute venues like Charleston and Hampton’s (see below).

The Wolf’s fans, on the other hand, cheered.

by Lynn Williams

maindish@baltimoreguide.com

Two trends have been going head to head in America’s restaurants. In one corner, the Supersizer, serving up massive slabs of meat, mountains of pasta, and desserts as big as your head. Having tossed out any reasonable notion of portion size, it’s murder on our waistlines, but keenly appeals to our love of a bargain.

The Supersizer’s opponent we’ll call the Appetizer. This is the stronghold of the small plate;