Charleston is Baltimore's most celebrated fine dining restaurant, located in the Harbor East neighbourhood at the edge of Fells Point. Chef Cindy Wolf has been cooking Low Country and French-influenced cuisine here since 1997, and the consistency has made it a fixed point in a city where serious restaurants come and go. The tasting menu is the point — seafood-heavy, technique-driven, and about as far from the city's famous no-frills aesthetic as you can get without leaving Maryland.
The wine list is excellent and the room is handsome without being ostentatious. Reservations well in advance are essential at weekends. Charleston represents the side of Baltimore that people who only know it from The Wire tend not to expect.