Milton Inn

Brian Boston, chef at the Milton Inn in Sparks, and Larry Wilhelm, owner and president of Friendly Farm Restaurant in Upperco, were recognized by Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz on June 27 for their achievements in Maryland's restaurant industry.  Brian Boston, chef at the Milton Inn in Sparks, and Larry Wilhelm, owner and president of Friendly Farm Restaurant in Upperco, were recognized by Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz on...

A new restaurant opened up Aug. 7 in the old Ixia space. Old-timers still call it the old Louie's Bookstore & Cafe space. The owner is Tegist Alayew, who has run two restaurants in Washington in the same U Street corridor location. The first, Gogo Cottage , which had a menu of Ethiopian food, ran for about six years until Alayew replaced it with Creme Cafe , a still-hopping Southern-style restaurant best known for its Sunday brunch. Think chicken and waffles. The good times at Creme Cafe, Alayew knows, might not last forever.

Baltimore Restaurant Week is over. Or, mostly at is. At least half of the more than 100 participating restaurants extended the fixed-price menu promotion beyond the original Aug. 22 conclusion through last Aug. 29, and at least one restaurant is at it still — the Prime Rib is continuing its promotion through Sept. 5. According to Nancy Hinds, Visit Baltimore's director of public affairs, anecdotal reports from restaurant owners were especially positive about this summer's promotion period, a span of unusually mild weather.

Zagat released its 2011 Washington, DC/Baltimore Restaurants Survey last week. Across the four major categories of top food, top decor, top service and most popular, the top-ranked restaurants for Baltimore and surrounding areas were, respectively, Charleston , Charleston, Charleston and Woodberry Kitchen . Charleston placed a far-from-shabby second in that last category, most popular, which I guess allows for a little je ne sais quoi:...

Richard Michael Pirone, a Baltimore restaurateur and founding senior partner of the Country Fare Group, a consortium that owns and operates some of the area's best-known restaurants, died Saturday of a heart attack at his Ellicott City home. The former longtime Homeland and Roland Park resident was 66. Born in New York City into a large Italian family, Mr. Pirone spent his early years in the city's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood before moving to Massapequa, L.I., with his family. "His family was poor, his father worked two jobs as a postal worker and at Con-Edison, but there was always plenty of good food on the table," said Mr. Pirone's wife of 39 years, the former Kathleen Wills.

Eleanora E. Allori, former longtime owner of the historic Milton Inn in Sparks, died Sunday of respiratory failure at the Lorien Mays Chapel nursing home. She was 77. Eleanora Elizabeth Keller was born in Baltimore and raised near Patterson Park and in Cumberland. After graduating from Patterson High School, she worked for the Social Security Administration and the G. Fava Fruit Co. before taking a job as a hat check girl at the old Maria's 300 on Albermarle Street in Little Italy. While working at Maria's, she met her future husband, Attilio B. Allori, who had been a partner in the popular restaurant.

Brian Boston makes Valentine's Day sweet at the Milton Inn in Sparks. The 40-year-old chef can create a chocolate box to hold a surprise engagement ring or whip up a Lovely Raspberry Tart to win a lover's heart. "We decorate ... so it's extremely romantic in the restaurant," says Boston, a native of Baltimore County who has spent the past 26 years in the kitchen on this holiday. If you're thinking of making a dinner at home, Boston has one suggestion: Keep it simple, "so you can spend the most time with the person."

How many stories have you read about a big chain store or restaurant moving into an area and taking over where a mom-and-pop place used to be? Well, here's one story where just the reverse has happened. In 1968, the International House of Pancakes opened on Baltimore National Pike in Catonsville. Shirley Stein was among the waitresses there. Stein continued working there over the years, eventually becoming a manager and helping to open a couple of other IHOPs around Baltimore. Fifteen years ago, Stein's daughter Karen Rocha joined her on the job. She, too, eventually became a manager, then general manager there.

Spring may be the best time of year to visit the Milton Inn, Baltimore's favorite destination restaurant. The front dining room of the mid-18th-century fieldstone house has large windows on two sides and is filled with light as the sun sets. The apple-green walls and handsome period furnishings of this pretty room look their best this time of year. Its well-spaced tables beckon, set with white linen, sparkling stemware and fresh flowers. The effect is fresh and appealing. So why does the hostess walk us past this lovely, mostly empty room and try to seat us in the back dining room, which is windowless, so dark someone at the table next to us has borrowed our candle to read his menu, and crammed full of other diners?