The historic core holding Lexington Market and Faidley's, the Shot Tower bakeries and the Corned Beef Row delis on East Lombard Street.
Order The crab cake, plus a cup of the Maryland crab soup loaded with vegetables.
Gertrude's sits inside the Baltimore Museum of Art, where founder John Shields cooks the Chesapeake canon of crab cake and Maryland crab soup.
Order The corned beef sandwich, hand-cut and piled high, with a potato knish.
Attman's Delicatessen has anchored downtown's Corned Beef Row since 1915, piling hand-cut corned beef and pastrami high in a no-frills lunch counter.
Order The jumbo lump crab cake, broiled, almost all crab and no filler.
Faidley's Seafood at Lexington Market has sold its jumbo lump crab cake since 1886, a stand-up counter where you eat the city's benchmark cake off paper.
Order Croissants and fruit tarts
Patisserie Poupon near the Shot Tower is Joseph Poupon's French bakery, turning out laminated croissants, macarons and glossy fruit tarts since the 1980s.
Zeke's Coffee is a family-run Baltimore roaster in Lauraville, small-batch roasting on Harford Road and pouring its beans across cafes citywide.
Thread Coffee Roasters is a worker-owned, fair-trade roaster on Greenmount Avenue, sourcing direct and supplying Baltimore cafes with organic beans.
Try Hand-breaded fried chicken and waffles
Connie's Chicken and Waffles works a stall inside Lexington Market, frying hand-breaded chicken to order and stacking it over waffles for the lunch crowd.
Try Egg-custard snowball with marshmallow
Walther Gardens runs one of the country's oldest snowball stands, shaving ice over syrup and topping the egg-custard classic with marshmallow each summer.
Also on this listFaidley's Seafood
Lexington Market has run downtown since 1782, one of America's oldest public markets, reopened in a new 2022 hall with Faidley's crab cakes at its heart.
Belvedere Square Market in north Baltimore is a food hall of specialist stalls, with Atwater's soups and breads, Neopol smoked fish and a wine bar.
Hollins Market is Baltimore's oldest continuously running public market, dating to 1836 in Southwest Baltimore and reopened in 2024 after a $2.1 million.
The Baltimore Farmers' Market sets up under the Jones Falls Expressway on Sundays, the state's largest producers-only market, running April through December.
German Christmas market at the Inner Harbor, held since 2013, with 60-plus vendors, Glühwein, raclette, wurst, schnitzel and a swing grill, 21 Nov to 27 Dec.
On this list, shown aboveAttman's DelicatessenConnie's Chicken and WafflesLexington Market
Order The fried green tomatoes and a coddie, the Maryland brunch tradition.
Miss Shirley's Cafe near the Inner Harbor is a Southern brunch destination, plating fried green tomatoes, shrimp and grits and Maryland coddies.
Also on this listGertrude's Chesapeake Kitchen
Power Plant Live is downtown Baltimore's open-air entertainment block, packing bars, dance floors and live-music rooms around a central courtyard.
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