YES, WE'RE (REALLY) OPEN!

Despite the pandemic, a slew of new restaurants open in Baltimore.

- MIKE UNGER

FOUR DUCKS HANG IN A ROW in the NiHao kitchen, ready to be sliced for the dinner rush. The birds are at the end of a final stage of a five-day preparation cycle during which they have been dried; marinated with star anise, orange juice, cinnamon, clove, and ginger (among other things); baked; and then roasted. Their next stop is the cutting station before they are plated and served piping hot to salivating guests in the bustling dining room.

At least that was the vision Lydia Chang and chef Pichet Ong had for their Chinese restaurant in Canton when they bought the building that formerly housed Fork and Wrench back in 2018. How long ago that seems now. On this Thursday evening in early September, like every night since the restaurant opened three weeks earlier, the order of Peking duck is plopped into a to-go container with brown rice buns before being placed in a paper bag.

After all, this is 2020, and boxes of supplies—not customers—occupy NiHao’s second-floor dining room. One of the city’s most eagerly anticipated restaurants in recent memory is, at least for now, a glorified takeout joint.

That COVID-19 has been devastating to restaurants is no secret. The Restaurant Association of Maryland projects that 40 percent of all of the state’s restaurants could close permanently unless restrictions are lifted and customers begin supporting them regularly again. But in the summer and early fall, another, far tastier trend began to emerge: restaurateurs rolling the dice and opening smack dab in the middle of the pandemic.