The Fork & Wrench Awards

The Fork & Wrench Restaurant Review:

Before Canton was the haunt of yuppies and yachtsmen, it was home to wharfside factories and the hardworking, blue-collar folk they employed. Old Canton has been gone for a generation or more, but it is receiving a latter-day tribute from an unusual source: an upscale, chef-driven, and wildly creative restaurant. Sure, plenty of places are sporting industrial-chic elements these days --- open shelves of canned goods, light fixtures that might have been crafted in Edison’s workshop --- as well as spinning culinary gold from such humble ingredients as kale and little-known pig parts. But nobody does this with as much panache as The Fork & Wrench. The venue’s design is evocative, both authentically gritty and surprisingly elegant. (In an upstairs dining room, faded, tattered floral wallpaper and a vintage card catalogue will make you feel you’re dining in a haunted library.) Eclectic fare changes often but has included starters of sunchoke soup and a king salmon crudo --- sea urchin crema, sea beans and pink peppercorns. Mains can be a whole roasted branzino or barbecue pork cheeks. It’s challenging food, and not inexpensive, but New Cantonites (and foodies from all over Baltimore) flock to this self-styled “boutique dive bar.” Wines are seasonal and the inventive cocktails are "handcrafted," but the desserts are as homespun as can be.