BALTIMORE DINER
Hard Rock Cafe goes local with new test menu
Inner Harbor location offers crab cakes, other seafood
Diners at Baltimore’s
The Inner Harbor restaurant was among 12 Hard Rock Cafe locations selected for the company’s “test kitchen” program. New items at the Baltimore restaurant became available last week.
Local offerings at the Hard Rock Cafe Baltimore include a crab cake sandwich, crab cake entree, crab dip “Local Legendary Burger” and a fresh catch of the day. On its drink menu, the restaurant also added a black-eyed Susan cocktail made with Sagamore rye whiskey.
John Galloway, Hard Rock International’s chief marketing officer, said the company began looking for potential test kitchen sites in January, searching for restaurants located in areas with strong “culinary energy,” an aptitude for local sourcing, and strong chefs and general managers.
Baltimore was among the locations selected from the chain’s 176 restaurants. Other Hard Rock test kitchens are in Chicago, Denver and Pittsburgh.
Culinary teams at Hard Rock’s Orlando headquarters collaborated with chefs in individual markets to develop the new menu items. While the test kitchen items could ultimately end up on Hard Rock’s universal menu, the primary goal was adding local flavor to Hard Rock’s standard offerings in certain markets.
“The bigger idea is to allow a guest who is visiting Baltimore to have their choice of local cuisine or the global Hard Rock cuisine that they may expect,” Galloway said. “It’s about serving the needs of locals as well as the tourists.”
The test kitchen restaurants spent about three months developing local dishes, and Galloway said he expects the local menu items to evolve over time.
Now that the items are available to the public, his team is taking feedback from customers. Galloway was in Baltimore last week for the launch of the new menu and to hear what diners thought of the new options. When it came to the crab cakes, customers told him not to mess with traditional preparations.
“We stuck to a script,” he said. “There’s not a lot of Hard Rock twist on that.”
Owner Geoffrey Danek said he’s planning to host a friends-and-family night Wednesday at the restaurant at 908 W. 36th St., after which he plans to spend a little more time getting his new kitchen up to speed before fully reopening.
A date for the restaurant’s official reopening has not been firmly set, but Danek said it will be before the end of the month.
“I kind of didn’t feel like I would see this day ever, so it’s been this long sort of emotional roller coaster of at times wanting to give up and other times just charging forward,” he said.
Although the fire “melted” the restaurant’s kitchen, Danek said it gave him the chance to expand the work space in the back of the house and add new equipment, including a flat-top grill and larger chargrill.
Danek said he has spent time at home perfecting some of the recipes for dishes on Holy Frijoles’ menu, which will largely stay the same — with offerings like nachos, burritos, chimichangas and enchiladas.
The second restaurant will offer a menu similar to the Federal Hill location at 21 E. Cross St., specializing in fries with toppings such as chicken, bacon and ranch dressing; buffalo chicken and blue cheese; and kimchi, sriracha mayonnaise, cheese and scallions.
The shop also serves banh mi sandwiches, wings and rice bowls.
Irish said many of his customers in Federal Hill hail from North Baltimore, and he wanted to open a new restaurant closer to them. He hopes the new spot will draw from areas like Towson, too.
The new Local Fry will be smaller than the original Federal Hill eatery — about 1,200 square feet compared to about 2,000 square feet. Irish expects the Rotunda restaurant to seat 15 to 20 guests and do a lot of carry-out business.
The first Local Fry operates as a BYOB, and Irish said the Rotunda location will do the same if he can’t secure a liquor license.
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