At 4:55 p.m. on a Thursday in October, the three outdoor patio tables in front of Little Donna’s were already claimed.

The doors to the Upper Fells Point tavern wouldn’t open for another five minutes, but enterprising diners had arrived early to snag some of the few reservation-free seats at a restaurant The New York Times named just a few weeks before to its 2023 list of the most exciting places to eat in America.

Those who arrived right on time but without reservations could choose between high-tops and bar stools at the front. Diners with a reservation were seated in cozy dining rooms on the side and at the rear. Soon enough, nearly every seat was filled and Little Donna’s was off to another busy night of serving its signature pizzas and pierogies.

To owner Robbie Tutlewski, the early arrivals were a sign that local foodies are starting to catch on to a new truth for the restaurant that opened nearly a year and a half ago: To guarantee a seat, it’s best to show up before peak dinnertime.

“It’s just a process to get your guests to know how things work,” Tutlewski, 40, said. “I think what people have started to understand is: Get here earlier.”

Those who prefer to make a reservation will have to wait until later this year, if not early 2024. As of the start of November, Little Donna’s was booked through the end of the month. Diners hoping to reserve a table for four or more are looking at a mid-December meal at the earliest.

The restaurant has experienced a rush of interest since The New York Times published “The Restaurant List” in September. The list features 50 dining spots from around the country that its food writers are “most excited about right now.” Little Donna’s was the only one to make the cut in Maryland.

The mention came as something of a shock to Tutlewski, who says the newspaper contacted him to schedule a photo shoot shortly before the piece went to press. New York Times staff wouldn’t specify what the photos were for, so as not to spoil the surprise.

How his petite restaurant at the corner of Bank and Durham streets, in a mostly residential part of town, landed on the Times’ radar is another mystery.

“I have no clue,” Tutlewski said.

‘The phone’s ringing’

Part of the reason may be the chef’s own background. Tutlewski, a native of Gary, Indiana, has worked with some notable names in the dining world since graduating in 2007 from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Chicago.

Chief among them is Chris Bianco, the James Beard Award-winning chef and owner of Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, Arizona. Tutlewski spent half a decade working with Bianco, helping him open several restaurants in the Phoenix area, and absorbing his approach to wood-fired pizza-making, menu planning and hospitality.

The chef moved to Washington, D.C., in 2017, and started making connections there, as well. He worked as a sous chef at Jon Sybert’s Michelin-starred Mediterranean restaurant Tail Up Goat, and made friends with restaurateurs including Big Bear Cafe owner Stu Davenport, who later hosted Little Donna’s pop-ups as Tutlewski’s vision for a restaurant of his own began to take shape.

Though Tutlewski and his wife, Kaleigh Schwalbe, thought about opening Little Donna’s in D.C., where they were living at the time, they ultimately landed on the old Henninger’s Tavern space in Baltimore. The tavern, which closed in 2021, was beloved for its quirky decor and community feel, and the couple decided to preserve many of those touches, keeping the tin ceilings and vintage subway tiles, and decorating the dining room with old photographs and homey knickknacks.

When the restaurant opened in June 2022, there was no marketing or publicity plan — just some local coverage and a hope that word-of-mouth would take care of the rest.

“It was basically just crossing our fingers that people would show up,” Tutlewski said.

For its first year in business, Little Donna’s took reservations by email, phone and direct message over Instagram. That system quickly changed after The New York Times piece.

Reservation requests started pouring in the Tuesday morning the list was revealed.

“We’re sitting at the back table, going over what needed to happen for the week,” Mallory Kuehn, the restaurant’s manager, recalled. “And the phone’s ringing. Somebody wanted a reservation.

“And then it really just didn’t stop ringing. At a certain point, I had to stop answering the phone because I had to go make the ranch dressing.”

On top of the phone ringing off the hook, Little Donna’s was getting 200 emails a day, Tutlewski said. The restaurant had to shut down its old email address and add a reservation booking calendar to its website to get a handle on the surge in interest.

The chef credits staff at his restaurant with nailing down the reservations logistics.

“All I do is surround myself with smart people,” Tutlewski said. “If it was up to me, I would just go radio silent. My most important thing is feeding the guests who are coming in and filling the seats.”

The spotlight may have forced the restaurant to get more organized, but it hasn’t changed much else. Regulars still swing by for a drink and a chat with the bartender. And new faces are treated with the same hospitality despite Little Donna’s newfound acclaim.

Kuehn said the restaurant’s staff have become adept at squeezing in large groups and walk-ins, as long as diners are OK with a bit of a wait. Even at full capacity, the restaurant feels lively but not overwhelming; tables are laid out in such a way that you can actually hear your conversations.

“We haven’t changed, really,” Kuehn said. “We’ve grown and learned and gotten better, but we’re still who we are. And we’re really capable with our little space.”

‘Everything is tied to a memory’

Recipes inspired by Tutlewski’s family and his culinary career still populate the menu, too.

A perennial standout is the plate of pierogi, which Tutlewski learned to make from his 5-foot-tall and feisty Serbian grandmother, Donna, the restaurant’s namesake. On a recent evening, the hearty dish was dressed up with hunks of lobster meat, butter, sweet corn and tomatoes.

Taco pies are inspired by the pizza at a bar and restaurant his uncle ran with friends in Pentwater, Michigan. Bob’s Salad is named for his father, an “encyclopedia of food” who worked at a farmers market in Chicago and frequently ate big, green salads.

“Nothing’s new here. Either it’s something I made with somebody, or it’s something I grew up with,” Tutlewski said. “Everything is tied to a memory.”

The personal touch is what appealed to New York Times editor Nikita Richardson, who wrote that “Little Donna’s encapsulates the feeling of coming home.”

“The setting evokes ‘Grandma’s sitting room,’ but this is a restaurant with flair and an exceptional bar program to boot,” Richardson wrote in the Times’ piece, which also highlighted Little Donna’s dishes such as Serbian pancakes called palacinke, smoked Carolina trout dip with horseradish and kielbasa-stuffed pork schnitzel.

Tutlewski sees family one day joining him at the restaurant. He and Schwalbe recently welcomed a baby boy named Jesse, and he plans to have his niece and nephew come for a visit to tour Little Donna’s. “Maybe they’ll want to get into it,” he said.

In the meantime, he plans to keep riding the wave of interest for as long as it lasts. The frenzy of the first month and a half following the article is calming down a bit.

“It’s leveling out now, but we have to work really hard,” Tutlewski said. “What’s changing is my own experience. Now we can start to do what we really want.”

He wants to add lunch and brunch service at Little Donna’s, though that will require a kitchen expansion to accommodate the additional traffic. Working with the restaurant’s 130-year-old building requires a delicate touch and lots of planning: Even something as simple as replacing an ice machine has the potential to detract from the space’s historic charm if it’s not done right.

“You have to be really respectful of it,” Tutlewski said.

He hopes the recognition is a sign that other Baltimore restaurants will get more love, as well. And he’ll take the praise as an indication that Little Donna’s is on the right track.

“People ask: Do you feel nervous?” Tutlewski said. “We hold ourselves to our own expectations.”

“We kept our momentum,” he added, “and we’re still ourselves.”