Matti Gellman

Baltimore

Food Reporter at The Baltimore Banner

Reporter @BaltimoreBanner • Past @KCstar • Send tips: [email protected]

Featured in: Favicon

kansascity.com Favicon

yahoo.com (+4) Favicon

salon.com

miamiherald.com Favicon

propublica.org Favicon

stltoday.com Favicon

charlotteobserver.com Favicon

kentucky.com Favicon

scroll.in

star-telegram.com + 67 more

Articles

Take that, Delaware: The orange crush is Maryland’s official state cocktail

2 days ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Matti Gellman

Break out the tiny umbrellas: Gov. Wes Moore announced June 1 that the orange crush is the official state cocktail of Maryland. The state’s claim to the drink — made of orange vodka, triple sec, fresh-squeezed orange juice, lemon lime soda and ice — comes after Delaware declared orange crushes their state cocktail as well, continuing the highly contentious row over the drink’s rightful home.
Puerto 511 restaurant owner opens another hidden gem in Fells Point

4 days ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Matti Gellman

It’s easy to miss — a brown banner and a few tables nestled within a brick Thames Street alleyway promising the “Best Peruvian Artisan Empanadas.” But the smiles on the curious few wandering into Empa511 Saturday showed that wouldn’t be the case for long. Restaurateur Jose Victorio Alarcon, who also owns the acclaimed fixed-course Peruvian eatery Puerto 511 downtown, debuted his new shop within Brown’s Wharf on May 27.
As tariff anxieties rise, more Marylanders are 'subscribing' to local farms

5 days ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Matti Gellman

Not since the early days of the pandemic in 2020 has Emma Jagoz’s Moon Valley Farm seen so many people buying food locally. About twice as many customers have signed up for her Woodsboro farm’s community-supported agriculture program this season compared to last year. And she’s not the only one seeing numbers rise. Often referred to as a CSA, the offering allows Jagoz to sell her crops directly to consumers who pay a weekly or bi-weekly subscription for a box of fruits and vegetables.
A new sheriff’s unit is being created to enforce Baltimore’s liquor laws

1 week ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Matti Gellman

The Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office is assembling a new unit to crack down on liquor laws and more routinely collaborate with the city’s liquor board. The initiative comes out of a concern from local communities that not enough is being done to enhance public safety and enforce the city’s liquor laws in high-traffic areas such as Fells Point and Federal Hill.
Rize + Rest cafe closes near Patterson Park, looks for new space

2 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Matti Gellman

Rize + Rest, a cafe near Patterson Park lauded for building its breakfasts and biscuits on family recipes, will close June 1 after about a year and a half in business. The eatery, opened in late 2023, grew into a neighborhood haunt offering meals to both early-rising breakfast enthusiasts and those looking for a restful evening with trendy dinners and drinks.
Kava root tea is coming to Maryland. It's calming, bitter and controversial.

2 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Matti Gellman

I don‘t know what I expected when the brown liquid promising to take away my inhibitions slipped down my throat. I know it kept coagulating in the plastic coconut shell in which it was served. I know it tasted like dirt, juiced and frothed into a sour milk-like substance that even the accompanying pineapple slice could not mask. I know my mouth went numb.
A fermented food community comes together in Baltimore for a gaseous new festival

3 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Matti Gellman

Lovers of salty brines and bubbling yeasts from across Maryland will gather in Baltimore on Saturday for what’s bound to be one of the largest celebrations of fermented foods in the state. It may look strange to the untrained eye: hundreds coming together to share a passion for watching food foam and discolor in a suspension of its own juices.
Maryland’s crab industry cracks under tariffs and labor shortages

3 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Matti Gellman

Lindy’s Seafood owner Aubrey Vincent is watching anxiously as the cost of paper rises. It’s one of the many raw materials she has imported to process and package her crabs for decades. But sweeping tariffs threatened to drive up the cost of critical supplies for her just weeks into the crabbing season. “I’m not sure where we’ll be in a few months,” Vincent said. Maryland’s crab processors have become their own endangered species.
This pop-up is signing a two year lease to bring matcha and mindfulness to Remington cafe

4 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Matti Gellman

After a successful matcha-themed pop-up, Remington cafe owner Quentin Vennie is putting down roots in his hometown. The Baltimore-raised business owner, who opened the city’s first matcha tea bar in February, will sign a two-year lease next week to move the shop to 311 W. 28th Street. It’s a transition he hopes will allow his premium tea company, Equitea, to be a mainstay among the city’s growing beverage providers. “We left the city in 2022 because we couldn’t raise any capital,” Vennie said.
‘The Mall in Columbia has become a different world’: Restauranteur blames crime for closures

1 month ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Matti Gellman

In March, restaurateur Desmond Reilly closed Chicken + Whiskey at the Mall in Columbia, but promised that his two other county eateries wouldn’t be going anywhere. They closed the next month. Bennie’s Pizza, a newcomer at the mall offering a menu co-signed by Michelin-starred chef Gerald Addison, and The Walrus Oyster & Ale House, a seven-year veteran that recently attempted to revitalize the business with a new, more French menu, both permanently shut their doors at 10300 Little Patuxent Parkway.