New Restaurant

Marie Louise Bistro, the new restaurant in the building that once housed Gampy's, is the Greta Garbo of Baltimore restaurants. I'm not saying its owner literally shuns publicity, but I did leave messages for her several times at Marie Louise Catering before the bistro opened, and was always told that only she could talk about the new place. I never heard back. There is also remarkably little information about the place on the Internet. Usually the local food blogs and message boards are abuzz about a new restaurant, but not this one. When I asked some people I know who live in the area, they told me that whenever they passed by, Marie Louise had been empty.

The chef reaches up, pulls down a ticket, shouts out an order, spins around and inspects a couple of plates going out, wiping the edges with a towel. A loud clatter of dishes, a line cook barks back and another order goes out. This is the Foundry on Melrose, Eric Greenspan's hot new restaurant in Los Angeles. It's hectic and tense and noisy, but we're not in the kitchen - we're in the dining room. Though the new spot already has become known as a place to be entertained - there's live music six days a week - the real show is chef Greenspan himself.

As Ted Stelzenmuller was getting ready to open his new restaurant in Canton last year, he met with a lawyer to go over paperwork. The lawyer offered a story about his own restaurant experience. "The first thing he said was, `I grew up in restaurants. My family started a business together, and now they don't speak,' " Stelzenmuller said. The lawyer's story was a cautionary tale. Stelzenmuller's mother, Michele Jackson, was sitting next to him in the lawyer's office, looking at the prospect of becoming co-owner of Jack's Bistro in Canton and partly responsible for a hefty loan to get her son's restaurant up and running.

Comparing the new Victor's Cafe to the old one doesn't make much sense. Though they have the same name and similar menus, the two restaurants are two totally different animals. The old Victor's Cafe, overlooking the Inner Harbor on Lancaster Street, was widely considered to have one of the best waterside dining views in the city. The new restaurant is suburban and quick-casual, located in a strip shopping center in Timonium. Poor:]

Lynn Patrick, who made a name for himself around here as a manager and part owner of the Milton Inn and then restaurant manager of Hamilton's in the Admiral Fell Inn, has a new restaurant in the works. He and his associates will be opening what he calls "a bistro with white tablecloth capability" in the late summer or early fall.The partners have a location (in the Carlyle Apartments at 500 W. University Parkway where the Dragon Palace used to be), an architect for the renovation (Rebecca Swanston)

Feel like Latino food but can't decide between a Mexican mole or Spanish paella? You won't find the decision any easier at Jalapenos (Forest Plaza shopping center in Parole), but at least you'll be able to get either one at the same place. The new restaurant specializes in the traditional cuisines of Mexico and Spain.Partners Gonzalo Fernandez and Alberto Serrano have previously been associated with several well-known Annapolis restaurants: Northwoods, Michaelangelo, Fergie's and the Maryland Inn's Treaty of Paris.

The Chart House had been open on the Inner Harbor's Pier 4 since 1979. But no more. It closed last week to make room for a new and improved Chart House, which will open in the Power Plant entertainment complex -- perhaps by the summer of 2000. While details of the project are sketchy at this point, management does promise outdoor seating, updated decor and a brand-new menu.New at 500 HarborviewThe dining room at 500 Harborview Drive is one of those spaces that keeps food critics happy. Every time I need a new restaurant to visit, voila!

Sometimes I think I could show up once a year at the spot where the South Harbor Tavern has just opened and find a new restaurant there every time.I can't figure out why. This location has everything going for it. It's a beautiful space right on the water, an intimate restaurant as opposed to some of the food factories around the harbor. Sure, it's a bit out of the mainstream; but to balance that there's plenty of free parking. The food is always pretty decent, the staff pleasant. But then one day, poof!

Tony Capagna is a busy man these days. He's the owner of the Charred Rib in Timonium, which is in the process of moving half a mile down the road to the Yorkridge Shopping Center. The new location, where the Hunt Ridge restaurant used to be, will give him more space and four private dining rooms.Meanwhile Campagna is waiting to see whether he'll get a liquor license for a new restaurant in Canton. If he does, Razorbacks will open in August at 2903 O'Donnell St., in the spot where Amiccis was. He's also planning to expand the new restaurant into the space next door.

Henry Pertman and Jeff Pressman, formerly of Henry & Jeff's and J. P. Henry's, have landed at a new restaurant in Columbia, the Tavern at Centre Park (8808 Centre Park Drive, formerly the site of McAllister's). Pertman, who developed the eclectic menu, is the executive chef; Pressman is the food and beverage director. Besides salads and sandwiches, the tavern offers entrees such as baked smoked duckling, a mixed grill of Mediterranean quail and pork, and trout stuffed with crab mousse.Owner J. P. Buldoc is planning for this to be the first of a chain of "upscale neighborhood restaurants."

Marie Louise Bistro, the new restaurant in the building that once housed Gampy's, is the Greta Garbo of Baltimore restaurants. I'm not saying its owner literally shuns publicity, but I did leave messages for her several times at Marie Louise Catering before the bistro opened, and was always told that only she could talk about the new place. I never heard back. There is also remarkably little information about the place on the Internet. Usually the local food blogs and message boards are abuzz about a new restaurant, but not this one. When I asked some people I know who live in the area, they told me that whenever they passed by, Marie Louise had been empty.

Ask your friends how this economic mess is affecting them, and I bet the first thing they say is that they are eating out less often - or maybe not at all. At a time when you can't cut back on your mortgage payment or your car payment or just about any other payment, dining out is one expense you can reduce. That, and shopping for clothes. While it makes me feel sensible and thrifty and virtuous to give up clothes shopping, putting an end to dinner out with my husband or my daughter or my friend Betsy just makes me feel sad. It isn't the food and wine I am giving up. It's the people.

At a time when most stories seem to be about how badly restaurants are doing in this economy or, worst-case scenario, about their closing, there is good news. Jaime Luna, the chef/owner of one of the area's most popular Mexican restaurants, Mari Luna Mexican Grill, has opened a second restaurant, Mari Luna Latin Grille (1010 Reisterstown Road, 410-653-5151) in Pikesville. Yes, the new place's name has an "e" on the end of "grill," maybe to reflect the fact that this restaurant is not fancier exactly, but less casual and more ambitious.

The chef reaches up, pulls down a ticket, shouts out an order, spins around and inspects a couple of plates going out, wiping the edges with a towel. A loud clatter of dishes, a line cook barks back and another order goes out. This is the Foundry on Melrose, Eric Greenspan's hot new restaurant in Los Angeles. It's hectic and tense and noisy, but we're not in the kitchen - we're in the dining room. Though the new spot already has become known as a place to be entertained - there's live music six days a week - the real show is chef Greenspan himself.

Tourists may think Baltimore's most noteworthy culinary achievements are crab cakes and the food in Little Italy, but local foodies point to Cindy Wolf and Tony Foreman's restaurants as proof that their city has sophisticated eating places to rival any in the country. Now diners will have an ambitious new restaurant and upscale wine bar to try when the couple's latest venture, a Northern Italian restaurant called Cinghiale (pronounced ching-GYAH-lay), opens across Lancaster Street from their signature establishment, Charleston.

As Ted Stelzenmuller was getting ready to open his new restaurant in Canton last year, he met with a lawyer to go over paperwork. The lawyer offered a story about his own restaurant experience. "The first thing he said was, `I grew up in restaurants. My family started a business together, and now they don't speak,' " Stelzenmuller said. The lawyer's story was a cautionary tale. Stelzenmuller's mother, Michele Jackson, was sitting next to him in the lawyer's office, looking at the prospect of becoming co-owner of Jack's Bistro in Canton and partly responsible for a hefty loan to get her son's restaurant up and running.

Comparing the new Victor's Cafe to the old one doesn't make much sense. Though they have the same name and similar menus, the two restaurants are two totally different animals. The old Victor's Cafe, overlooking the Inner Harbor on Lancaster Street, was widely considered to have one of the best waterside dining views in the city. The new restaurant is suburban and quick-casual, located in a strip shopping center in Timonium. Poor:]

Nearly a year ago, an early-morning fire caused an estimated $1 million in damage to a popular downtown Westminster restaurant, but the site of the Fat Cat Cafe is making its way back. In place of the shattered windows, caution tape, piles of debris and the destroyed third floor, there are tarps and glass, a construction crew and a turret extending from the roof of the rebuilt top level. The building is being restored by its new owner, Sykesville Mayor Jonathan S. Herman. Herman, who fell in love with 172 E. Main St. years ago, said the building will keep its historic look and will reopen with a new restaurant and apartment units inside.

Food: *** 1/2 (3 1/2 STARS) Service: ** (2 STARS) Atmosphere: ** 1/2 (2 1.2 STARS) Nancy Longo, being the savvy restaurateur that she is, has opened Longo's, her new restaurant, very quietly. While she's not as much of a local celebrity as she was when her Fells Point restaurant, Pierpoint, was in its heyday, her new project should be big news on the local restaurant scene. Instead, it's been pretty much flying under the radar. It's a good way to get the kinks out. As of my visit, Longo's had been open some six weeks for lunch and three weeks for dinner.

There was time in the 1990s when every new restaurant in Baltimore seems to have some attachment to the hard-working brothers, Spike and Charlie Gjerde. They launched places in Mount Vernon, Federal Hill, Canton and Bolton Hill. But restaurant work is notoriously demanding; it all took a toll on their personal lives, and as of last year, they had closed or sold all their ventures. The hiatus proved to be temporary. This past Thursday, Spike signed the lease -- in negotiations for months -- for his newest restaurant venture, the Woodberry Kitchen in the rapidly developing Clipper Mill complex.