You knead to check this out! Harbor East’s Kneads H&S Bakery has expanded its menu to include dinner service, offering small and large plates in addition to their famous baked goods. At the helm of the kitchen is Cyrus Keefer, Kneads’ chef de cuisine, a seriously talented and creative culinary artist and graduate of The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College in Philadelphia.
Post-graduation, Chef Keefer was the executive chef at Redfin Seafood Grill under James Beard Humanitarian Award-winning chef Matt Haley. He continued to hone his skills at local restaurants including Fork & Wrench, the Alexander Brown Restaurant, Cunningham’s and Birroteca.
Kneads’ carefully crafted menu offers small plates including “Knead This Guacamole” (seafood ceviche, watermelon radish, finger lime and taro root), “Jerk Octopus” (banana mojo, chayote chutney and sweet potato), and “Calamari Milanese” (wasabi arugula, caper brown butter and meyer lemon).
Large plate selections include duck frites (foie gras mousse, frisée, cherries, crispy shallots and au poivre sauce), ciopinno (chef’s selection of fish and shellfish, rich lobster tomato broth and shrimp butter toast) and miso batter fried Atlantic halibut (creamy corn chowder, pea tendrils and croissant). Tasty pasta dishes and a curated beer, wine and cocktail menu will round out your dining experience.
Knead’s also has a cool backstory of Bawlmer history. In 1943, H&S Bakery was founded by Greek immigrants, Harry Tsakalos and Steve Paterakis. Steve’s son, John Paterakis Sr., grew the business with the addition of H&S’s first automatic rolls plant in 1962, and a handshake deal between John Paterakis and Ray Kroc in 1965 starting a long-term relationship with McDonald’s.
H&S acquired the Schmidt Baking Co. and Ottenberg’s Bakery and became the largest privately owned bakery in the nation. After acquiring waterfront property, Paterakis developed the Harbor East neighborhood that showcases hotels, restaurants, shops and residences.
And then came Kneads, a bakeshop and café for the community to gather and break bread. (kneadsbakeshop.com)
Keepin’ It Pure
Longtime Charm City favorite Cypriana, a restaurant offering authentic Mediterranean-style cuisine, has signed a lease in Maple Lawn, the mixed-use community in Howard County’s Fulton area. The space has seating for approximately 180 patrons and an outdoor patio.
Cypriana’s origins can be traced back to a small food cart on the sidewalks of Baltimore in 1990 when founder and owner Vassos Yiannouris and his wife, Maria Kaimakis, began offering meals based on recipes perfected in Cyprus and Greece by his mother and grandmother.
Finding success and loyal customers, Yiannouris next established a site in a downtown food court and subsequently operated Cypriana Café at the corner of Baltimore and Light streets. The concept also served food within a space at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center before opening a popular, full-service, sit-down restaurant on 39th Street near Johns Hopkins University in 2017.
“Our mission is our commitment to creating ultra-authentic, homemade Mediterranean food, using only the freshest ingredients with absolutely no preservatives or sugar,” Yiannouris said. “You simply cannot be authentic if you do not use pure ingredients.”
Yiannouris says customers most frequently praise Cypriana’s octopus, hummus and salad dishes, as well as the slow-cooked vegetables served with freshly baked pita bread.
“Due to our French cuisine background, we also have the most amazing Bechemel sauce,” he said. (cypriana.com)
Fired Up in Fed Hill
Locals Only, a wood-oven pizza restaurant and pub, recently opened at 25 East Cross St. in the Federal Hill spot formerly occupied by Social Pub and Pie.
Locals’ menu is broken down into categories — pizza, not pizza and dessert. The dishes have cutesy names, too, including “Street Corn Named Desire,” “Magic Mush,” “Charcuter-Pie,” “The Jabroni” and “Ducked Up.” In addition to the imaginative pizza offerings, they also have wings, burrata, calzone and booze! (localsonlybaltimore.com)
For The Common Good
A Hampden favorite for more than a quarter-century, Common Ground has returned! The local coffee, espresso and scratch-kitchen, community-based, hangout-and-chill restaurant has reopened as a worker-owned cooperative in partnership with the Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy and Seed Commons.
The menu offers breads, spreads, quiches, sammies, salads and baked goods. Congratulations to the new owners! (commongroundhampden.com)
Randi Rom is president of RJ Rom & Associates. She is a freelance columnist and writer who represents some of the region’s top restaurants and food-related events. Contact her at randirom@ comcast.net.
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