When you go for lunch, even at a trendy place in an artsy urban neighborhood, you don’t expect to be surrounded by art on all sides, view of even more art constellations outside and creative stuff to play with on your table. Meet Encantada in Baltimore Maryland, which is housed inside the American Visionary Art Museum on Federal Hill.
The fare is on the light side and while it’s not a purely vegetarian restaurants, veggies will delight over their healthy and fresh options, from chick peas, pickled vegetables, zucchini, turnips with deviled faux eggs and smoked paprika, radish, heirloom tomatoes with black garlic and sea salt and burrata, a concoction of peaches, english peas, savory peach jam and pea powder. Yum!
I kept things simple and went for an iced tea and their Lacinato Kale Salad with chick pea croutons, shaved fennel and hemp seeds. We also tried their heirloom tomato salad since it was the season and one of their burgers with house made ketchup. For veggies, they had mushroom, bean and avocado burgers with a cilantro aioli. There was also a delicious Mushroom & Miso Broth soup on the menu as well as a Bacon & Lemongrass Dashi, a sure win for bacon lovers.
Inside, the ambiance is chic and bistro-like with tons of eye-candy to keep you interested for hours and the bar is quite fun as well.
We opted to sit outside which is upstairs on the patio, which means there’s a view of various things including more art of course. Let’s just say that art prevails inside and outside of the building. Exhibits feature both contemporary and historic works by self-taught artists. The museum specializes in the preservation and display of outsider art (also known as “intuitive art,” “raw art,” or “art brut”). The city agreed to give the museum a piece of land on the south shore of the Inner Harbor under the condition that its organizers would clean up residual pollution from a copper paint factory and a whiskey warehouse that formerly occupied the site. It has been designated by Congress as America’s national museum for self-taught art. How cool is that?
The 1.1 acre campus contains 67,000 square feet of exhibition space and a permanent collection of approximately 4,000 pieces. The permanent collection includes works by visionary artists like Ho Baron, Nek Chand, Howard Finster, Ted Gordon, Mr. Imagination (aka Gregory Warmack), Clyde Jones, Leonard Knight, William Kurelek, Mary Proctor, Leo Sewell, Judith Scott, Vollis Simpson, Ben Wilson, and many others, as well as over 40 pieces from the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre of London. The museum’s Main Building features three floors of exhibition space, and the campus includes a Tall Sculpture Barn and Wildflower Garden, along with large exhibition and event spaces in the Jim Rouse Visionary Center.
DETAILS:
Encantada (Federal Hill)
800 Key Highway
Baltimore, MD 21230
410.752.1000
Twitter @encantadabmore
American Visionary Art Museum @TheAVAM
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
