Sometimes we all need a little help when it comes time to impress a date. Certain restaurants may please the tongue and fill the belly but don't tug on our emotions. The selections we have gathered here have that certain something—perhaps a light-speckled patio, or a roving musician, or inspirational garden—that can wow a date, and put them in the mood to satisfy other appetites. Presented in alphabetical order, here are the top ten romantic restaurants in Baltimore.
Sometimes we all need a little help when it comes time to impress a date. Certain restaurants may please the tongue and fill the belly but don't tug on our e... more
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1
Aldo's
306 S. High St., Baltimore, MD 21202 / 410-727-0700
Aldo's is so beautiful that, depending on where you sit, you may feel like you're dining inside a tapestry-lined palazzo or outside on a romantically lit piazza. A seat on the second floor could place you in an Art Nouveau dining room with extraordinary millwork or inside a grand boardroom. That gorgeous woodwork is hand-wrought by the owner, chef Aldo Vitale, a carpenter before he took to the stoves. The menu is influenced by Vitale's native Calabria, but also rounds up the usual suspects---fried calamari, veal saltimbocca---with aplomb. The house's signature dish---foie gras-wrapped tournedos Rossini with wild mushroom sauce---is dependably lush, with fall-off-the-bone-tender osso buco running a close second. The wine list includes intriguing Italians.
2
Antrim 1844 Country House Hotel
Antrim 1844 Country House Hotel, 30 Trevanion Rd., Taneytown, MD 21787 / 410-756-6812, 800-858-1844
Executive chef Michael Gettier has found a delightful country home in Taneytown, where he brings his signature French style to Richard and Dorothy Mollett's charming Antrim 1844. The hotel's prix-fixe, multi-course format remains the same: The evening begins with drinks and passed hors d'oeuvres in the drawing room as you settle into the splendid surroundings of this restored plantation house, now an antique-filled bed and breakfast. Dinner begins at 7 p.m. Relax into a high-backed chair in front of a roaring fire, sip a wonderful wine from the restaurant's cellar and let the panoply of a felicitous meal play out before you. Your choices from the six-course menu will arrive in gracious style, starting, say, with a salmon and caper cigar to be followed by a wild greens salad, an intermezzo and then an entrée, such as duck in two fashions, with beautifully braised confit courting sautéed foie gras on a bed of lentils. Plates of varied desserts to share cap the extravaganza. The evening ends all too soon, but the memory lingers. Smart diners reserve a room for the night to save re-entry into the cold, cruel world for the bright light of day.
3
Boccaccio
925 Eastern Ave., Baltimore, MD 21202 / 410-234-1322
Chef Giovanni Rigato presides over a refined northern Italian venue that suits a high rolling crowd, but still has the graciousness to take care of the special occasion diner. The soft ochres and ruddy peach tones of Tuscany beckon in a series of interconnected dining rooms, each with its own special touches. With a consistency few restaurants match, this kitchen turns out an ample list of classics---pastas like farfalle with jumbo lump crab, topnotch veal dishes, and olive-encrusted breast of chicken with pine nut polenta. Seafood is always first-rate. Listen attentively to daily specials; there you'll find seasonal dishes like white truffles in fall, wild game in winter, and soft-shell crabs in summer. Add a richly detailed Italian wine list---and the availability of good advice for plumbing its depths---and a lovely evening is yours for the asking.
4
The Brass Elephant
924 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21201 / 410-547-8480, 410-547-8485
The kitchen’s latest incarnation has left much of Brass Elephant’s Italian roots behind for a more contemporary American approach. The veal tenderloin, for instance, is sage-rubbed, and accompanied by a Gorgonzola and caramelized onion potato rösti, with a Turkish fig demi-glace. And the pan-roasted grilled salmon comes with plantain chips and Frangelico beurre blanc. Change is good, but we do miss the more sensual flavor of Brass Elephant’s past. Still, the mood at this midtown brownstone remains the same, with gilt-edged mirrors, intricately carved woodwork, sparkling chandeliers, ornate fireplaces, and hushed attentive service lending an air of authority. A series of interconnecting rooms makes for intimate dining, but also delivers tantalizing vignettes of a well-tailored, dark-suited crowd. If such a thing was allowed here, which it isn’t, we would all be lighting fat cigars to accompany our great snifters of brandy, feeling as lordly as the robber barons of old.
5
Charleston
1000 Lancaster St., Baltimore, MD 21202 / 410-332-7373
Southern sensibilities meet big-city sophistication, and diners are the lucky beneficiaries at chef Cindy Wolf and partner-husband Tony Foreman’s lovely Charleston. From its gleaming open kitchen comes low country Carolina cooking backed by French fundamentals. Wolf’s daily menu gathers the best of each season into a winsome collection of elegant eats, while Foreman’s commanding wine list offers a chartered tour of world viniculture. Put this together with impeccable service and a richly-hued, Deco-flavored interior to see why the place is second home to city scenesters. The format is a prix-fixe tasting menu featuring three to six courses of small plates, as well as a nightly six-course seasonal dinner for two. How to choose, when the offerings include the downright-addictive shrimp over creamy grits with bits of andouille sausage (a signature), Springfield Farm rabbit terrine with pecans and chèvre, grilled pheasant breast with crispy grit cake, or pork shoulder confit with butterbean risotto? Do ask Foreman to pair wine by the glass with each course; you’ll be treated to some of his latest finds. The dining spaces are intimate and romantic, but if you want a water view, ask for a table in the Palm Room.
6
Ixia
518 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21201 / 410-727-1800
Ixia’s menu has morphed in the years since its birth, going from inventive pan-Asian to a generalist’s global approach. You can find a sashimi small plate as well as ahi loin with Alaskan king crab pot stickers, but you can also dine on monkfish osso buco with lobster creamed spinach, rack of Australian lamb crusted with cumin and medjool dates, or an “artisanal” American filet mignon. Nothing, however, has changed about the appeal of the restaurant’s interior. The dining room is the most intense shade of synthetic blue, with architectural details picked out in gold, and shimmering floor-to-ceiling curtains with the appearance of spun steel. And the bar is still a dark, sexy enclave, with lounging chairs, couches and cushioned banquettes. The food no longer piques the imagination as much as the environment, but what it lacks in exoticism it has gained in consistency. Wednesdays and Thursdays bring special tasting menus created by chef Kevin Miller.
7
Kali's Court
1606 Thames St., Baltimore, MD 21231 / 410-276-4700
It isn't just the plum-colored dining room and ultra-romantic patio that are drawing happy hordes to this Fells Point spot, though it is an uncommonly pleasant space with its two-story volume, long brass-railed bar and gracious appointments. A crowd-pleasing menu with a Greek-inflection seals the deal. The grilled octopus is a local favorite, tender and slightly smoky beneath its dressing of olive oil and lemon. And the brick-oven oysters over spinach are sweet under their topping of browned feta. Best is the crab soup, with big lumps of backfin in a winningly spiced tomato broth. Crab cakes, grilled lamb chops and beef kebabs are all good bets.
8
Louisiana
1708 Aliceanna St., Baltimore, MD 21231 / 410-327-2610
To say that much of the décor is salvaged from now-defunct properties---the pink marble from Saks Fifth Avenue in Owings Mills, the grand staircase from PT Flagg's Power Plant, the gas lamps from Baltimore City salvage yard---is to miss the warmth and finesse this space exudes. It's like the best private club with touches of Southern hospitality. When the restaurant opened in 2000, its menu was old-fashioned, focused on the French influences behind Louisiana cuisine. These days, the offerings are more modern, the flavors more clear. Shrimp and grits are sauced in an opulent corn emulsion. Roasted beet salad garnished with goat cheese gains depth from a musky truffle vinaigrette. Pecan-crusted catfish sparked with mustard sports collard greens stewed with cayenne pepper and cubed ham. This is some good eating, with topnotch, low-key service to match.
9
Milton Inn
14833 York Rd., Sparks, MD 21152 / 410-771-4366
This grande dame of a stagecoach stop-turned-country inn (c. 1740) radiates care within a series of small rooms that make for intimate dining, and the manor house décor is striking. We like the red room, its crimson walls edged in white, its collections of prints and china plates artfully hung. But then there’s the hearth room to consider, with its massive stone fireplace, and the blue room, too, with its curtains in soft yellow chintz. Chef-partner Brian Boston is upholding its reputation as a bastion of fine dining. His seasonal menu nods to regional traditions while adding Southern touches, taking a gutsy rather than inventive stance on such dishes as mesquite-rubbed duck breast with smoked corn grits and jerk-marinated pork chop with andouille risotto. When soft-shell crabs are in season, don’t pass them by. Two gargantuan specimens will likely come browned in lemon-cashew butter and draped over a relish of corn, peas, baby tomatoes and diced beets. A once staunchly Californian wine list has moved toward Burgundy and Rhône.
10
The Prime Rib Restaurant
Horizon House, 1101 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, MD 21202 / 410-539-1804
Sexy black lacquer walls, a leopard-print carpet, a white, Lucite-topped piano complete with tuxedoed player teasing out jazzed-up standards---we get giddy just thinking about this place. Huge sprays of flowers fill the wall’s arched niches. And the vivacious clamor of a tony crowd, part power brokers, part romancers, greets us like the happy sound of ice cubes clinking in two-fingers of bourbon. When that strip steak comes it will be lush, dry-aged, and seared to a caramelized finish. The prime rib, heaped with fresh horseradish, will drape cunningly across the plate. The baked rockfish, simply brushed with lemon butter, will be fresh, moist, and oh-so-flavorful. And the sides of mashed potatoes and creamed spinach will be wickedly rich. Troll the wine list to discover some fabulous Californians, including the occasional endangered species. This is straight-up American steakhouse dining, and there’s not much that can top it.
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