15 Best Seafood Restaurants in Baltimore, MD

Among the best things to do in Baltimore are amazing seafood dishes, and there is perhaps no place in the country that does it better. A large number of restaurants specialize in serving East Coast seafood in the city of Baltimore and so it can be hard to choose.

We have selected 15 of the best seafood restaurants in a city that does seafood phenomenally well. Each restaurant puts their own twist on the food and dining experience, meaning that Baltimore has a wide range of amazing and interesting options.

The 15 Best Seafood Restaurants in Baltimore, MD near me today according to local experts are:

• 1. Rusty Scupper, Inner Harbor
• 2. Faidley's, West Side
• 3. LP Steamers, Locust Point
• 4. Mama's on the Half Shell, Canton
• 5. Nick's Fish House, Port Covington
• 6. Ouzo Bay, East Harbor
• 7. Phillips Seafood, Inner Harbor
• 8. Thames Street Oyster House, Fells Point
• 9. The Black Olive, Fells Point
• 10. The Oceanaire Seafood Room, Harbor East
• 11. The Prime Rib, Mount Vernon

Attraction Spotlight: Baltimore Museum of Industry

The Baltimore Museum of Industry sits on a 5-acre campus along the Maryland waterfront and is a celebration of all things related to the past, present, and future of Maryland’s industrial legacy. The museum’s location adjacent to a thriving port highlights its celebration of the common American worker, their entrepreneurial spirit, grit, and legacy of innovation. The permanent collection includes the main building itself, a fruit, vegetable, and oyster cannery built in 1865.

Visitors can walk through a replica 1920s-era garment loft, an ode to one of Baltimore’s oldest industries. A machine shop shows visitors where work was once done to conduct on-site repairs of machinery. A replica 1910 pharmacy re-creates a soda fountain and teaches visitors about the development of many of the pharmaceuticals we use today. A print shop showcases a working vintage printing press and a linotype machine. The Decker Gallery includes several artifacts related to the history of innovation and industry in Maryland, including the world’s first cordless electric drill. Among the more popular artifacts are the 1937 Mini Mariner, a flying prototype of a WWII boat bomber, built and restored in Baltimore. The Baltimore is a 1906 steam tug docked on the museum grounds. The Baltimore is a refurbished original and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993. She is still operational and is kept in shape by a group of volunteers, who meet once monthly to do small repairs and upkeep. The museum is home to a large archive and library that maintains records and documents related to the history of industry in Baltimore. The research library hosts the historical collections of many local corporations, such as the Rustless Iron and Steel Corporation and the American Rolling Mill Company (ARMCO). About 10,000 images from the Baltimore Gas and Electric archives are searchable online. The museum is also the official repository for archives and artifacts from the Bendix Radio Foundation, a nonprofit organization made up of past employees and friends of Bendix Radio, a Baltimore original now absorbed into the Raytheon Company.

History: The Museum of Industry was founded in 1977 as a project of the mayor’s office to preserve the industrial history of downtown Baltimore. Then mayor William Donald Schaefer was instrumental in the founding of the museum as well as of the National Aquarium in Baltimore and the new Baltimore Convention Center. Much of the history is in the buildings themselves. The main building of the museum is the 1865 Platt and Company cannery, the only surviving cannery in Baltimore.

Ongoing Programs and Education: The museum offers a variety of educational programs and events all year round. The BMI Farmer’s Market happens each Saturday though the spring and fall and is in its ninth year. In addition to purchasing fruits and vegetables from local farmers, visitors can enjoy ready-to-eat baked goods and treats as well as artisan-crafted items and listen to live music. Independence Day celebrations include a fireworks show. The Distillery Showcase features tastings from 10 members of the Maryland Distiller’s Guild along with music and appetizers. The Working Animals event introduces visitors to working service animals and their handlers. Printmaking workshops with local artists make use of the museum’s vintage printing press and linotype. Talks with guest speakers include subjects such as history, architecture, and sociology and are frequently related to either the museum’s permanent collections or the temporary exhibits.

Daily and weekly programming includes tours of the museum, a Wee Workers program geared towards preschoolers, and a Weekend Workers program that offers children of all ages hands-on weekend activities.

The BMI has been host to the annual Industrialist of the Year award since 2004. The award is named for the late mayor of Baltimore and Governor of Maryland William Donald Schaefer and is given each year to a visionary Baltimore area business leader who is distinguished by their innovation and dedication to the well-being of their community. The award presentation luncheon is one of the museum’s largest annual fundraisers. Monies raised go towards educational programming at the museum, which serves upwards of 80,000 children annually.

Past and Future Exhibits: In addition to the permanent collection, the museum hosts several rotating exhibits each year. Past exhibits have included Video Game Wizards, an immersive interactive exhibit in which visitors can create their own video games. A tribute to Helen Delich Bentley displayed select dresses from the permanent collection worn by the groundbreaking maritime reporter and congresswoman in the 1960s. REINVENTION: The Work of Chris Bathgate showcases the artist’s machined metal sculptures made from salvaged parts.

1415 Key Highway East, Baltimore, MD 21230, Phone: 410-727-4808

Attraction Spotlight: Top of the World

Located in Baltimore, Maryland’s Inner Harbor, the Top of the World observation deck is a 27th-floor observation area within the Baltimore World Trade Center, the tallest regular pentagonal skyscraper in the world. Baltimore’s World Trade Center building was designed in 1966 by Pei Cobb Freed and Partners architectural firm, intended as a center for services dedicated to the promotion of world trade.

History

The building’s construction began in 1973 and was completed in 1977, at a cost of $22 million. Its Pratt Street location along the city’s Inner Harbor was designed to mimic the prow of a ship and provide the illusion of the building rising out of the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. The facility is lit from the ground up by a system of 4,500-watt xenon spotlights designed by Ray Grenald, creating a beacon effect meant to mimic Chesapeake Bay area lighthouses. At a height of 405 feet, the skyscraper rises 30 stories above the Inner Harbor and is considered the tallest regular pentagonal skyscraper in the world, as the 75-story JP Morgan Chase building in Houston, Texas is classed as an irregular pentagonal structure. As one of 16 member facilities of the World Trade Centers Association, the building houses 309,000 square feet of office space and is home to the Maryland Port Administration, the World Trade Center Institute, and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. Though it operates as a private nonprofit international business organization, it is held under state ownership by the Maryland Port Administration and building leasing is overseen by the Meridian Management Corporation.

Permanent Exhibits and Tours

Located on the World Trade Center’s 27th floor, the 360-degree Top of the World observation area offers an opportunity for tourists to experience panoramic views of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and downtown areas. As the 2015 recipient of TripAdvisor’s Certificate of Excellence, the Top of the World serves as a joint observation deck and area visitor’s center, offering photo guides of area attractions, accommodations, and neighborhoods alongside binocular observation stations. Docents provide further information and personal anecdotes to further acquaint visitors with the Baltimore area. The observation facility is fully handicap accessible and features an art gallery area hosting rotating temporary exhibits of art and photography by regional artists. A gift shop also sells handmade items by Baltimore-area artists and makers.

The Top of the World observation deck is open during daytime hours, with final daily tickets sold one half hour before closing. Children under three years of age are admitted for free, and discounted rates are available for seniors, military members, and children under 12. As a result of heightened security measures following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center complex, all visitors are required to undergo manual searches of purses, backpacks, and other carry-on items before entering the observation area and are encouraged not to bring non-essential items to the facility.

As a part of Baltimore’s Harbor Pass attraction deal, visitors may purchase tickets for the Top of the World as part of a package with other Inner Harbor attractions, including the National Aquarium, the Port Discovery Children’s Museum, and the American Visionary Art Museum. Group tours for school groups and organizations of 50 visitors or more may be scheduled directly through facility administrative offices, and private rentals for corporate events and meetings may be scheduled to accommodate up to 250 participants. Several annual public special events are also offered at the facility, including a Picnic at the TOP! celebration offering panoramic views of the city’s Fourth of July fireworks and festivities.

World Trade Center Exhibits

The Baltimore World Trade Center is also home to the 9/11 Memorial of Maryland, honoring the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center facility. Dedicated in 2011 on the 10-year anniversary of the event, the memorial structure is located near the building’s Pratt Street entrance, featuring three 22-foot steel beams recovered from the wreckage of the 94th and 96th floors of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. Limestone pieces recovered from the damaged west wall of the Pentagon are also incorporated into the structure, which lists the names of 68 Maryland residents who were killed during the 2001 attack. The memorial is designed to work as a sundial in conjunction with the skyscraper’s shadow, so that the shadow crosses an inscription on the structure on September 11 of every year. Windows located on the building’s top story are also engraved with the names of all the attack’s victims, and a granite block exhibit honors the victims of Flight 93.

A Floating Wetlands exhibit area is also located at the building’s waterfront bulkhead, acting as a wetlands nitrogen extraction area for the Inner Harbor. Completed in 2012, the wetlands area is operated by Baltimore’s Waterfront Partnership, funded by grant money from Blue Water Baltimore. The wetlands system extracts two pounds of nitrogen from the Harbor’s waters for every 100 pounds of grass within the system, provides a marine life habitat area, and works in conjunction with the Mr. Trash Wheel water wheel and Healthy Harbor Plan program to utilize retrieved plastic bottles to provide structure buoyancy.

401 E Pratt St, Baltimore, MD 21202, Phone: 410-837-8439

Attraction Spotlight: Baltimore B&O Railroad Museum

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Museum and a National Historic Landmark. The museum showcases a variety of artifacts related to early American railroading.

The B&O line, the Western Maryland line, and the Chesapeake and Ohio line are represented, among others. The museum sits on a 40-acre campus that includes the location of the first commercial long-distance rail line as well as the first passenger train station in America’s history. The permanent collection includes over 200 pieces of locomotives as well as artifacts related to railroading such as tools, timepieces, and uniforms as well as furniture, fine art, and silver. A collection of toy trains and train models illuminates America’s fascination with railroading.

The collection of locomotives and rolling stock dates back to the very start of American railroading and aims to represent the first, last, or best of railroad history. Steam engines date back to the 1820s and include both restored originals and replicas. There are electric and diesel engines as well as a range of passenger and freight trains, and even a hand pump car from 1915. The Alex Brown & Sons Exhibition Gallery displays small objects and artifacts from the permanent collection on a rotating basis. Current exhibits include the Smithsonian’s collection of railroad models. These scale displays represent innovations in American railroading and are considered to be the finest examples of model locomotives. The About Time exhibit displays wall clocks, pocket watches, and other time keeping pieces used by the B&O Railroad and its employees and illuminates the importance of accurate time keeping in the railroad industry as well as the railway’s role in standardizing time keeping.

The site of the museum itself is an important part of the collection. Recognized as a National Landmark, the buildings and structures on the 40-acre campus are an integral part of the history of the B&O Railroad. The ruins of the “tender kitchen,” built in 1919, can be seen. In this area, the railroad locomotive tenders were repaired and was considered a state-of-the-art industrial structure when it was built. The Mt Clare depot, built in 1851, is the oldest building on the campus and was built to provide passenger services, offering indoor waiting rooms and a ticket office. The Baltimore & Ohio Passenger Car Works, built around 1870, originally housed the facilities to build and repair passenger cars. Today, the northern one of these two buildings houses the museum’s locomotives. The Roundhouse, built in 1884, was originally a passenger car shop. The Annex building, also constructed in 1884, served as a storage facility for many years and today is the main entrance to the museum and houses the permanent collection galleries as well as a gift shop.

History: The B&O Railroad was America’s first commercial long-distance railroad and was known since its inception to be keenly aware of its place in history. Books about the railroad were written as early as 1853, and in 1876 the railroad celebrated its history with an exhibit at the US Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. In the 1880s, with competition growing, the railroad began to promote itself as America’s First Railroad and hired a publicity agent. The museum can be said to have begun at this time, when PR agent Joseph G. Pangborn mounted a gold-medal winning exhibit to promote the Baltimore Railroad. This exhibit of older out-of-service locomotives as well as wooden replicas was showcased at fairs throughout the late 1800s and into the early 1900s. Ultimately, when the roundhouse at Mt Clare was abandoned, the collection was stored there and made available to the public all year round. The roundhouse was the largest commercial building in the world when it first opened, and was used for years as passenger car shop, opening to the public as the B&O Transportation Museum at Mt Clare in 1953. In 1987, after a series of mergers, the B&O Railroad was no more, and in 1990 the museum became its own nonprofit entity. In 1999, the museum signed an agreement with the Smithsonian, becoming the first of just seven US museums to be honored with such an affiliation. Today, the museum has earned the nickname “America’s Railroad Museum” for its innovation and leadership in the field, and hosts over 200,000 visitors annually.

Ongoing Programs and Education: The B&O Railroad museum provides lesson plans for field trips, guided tours, and downloadable materials to accompany the exhibits. Lego programs for children ages 15 and under provide hands-on rail car and railway building activities. Steam Days is an annual October weekend event that fires up the museum’s steam engines and offers a variety of associated activities.

901 West Pratt St., Baltimore, MD 21223, Phone: 410-752-2490