Crab Cakes and Meatballs: A Day Around Baltimore's Harbor

After a morning at the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum, we pointed ourselves toward the water and gave the rest of our day to the area around Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

The first thing you notice is how the promenade wraps the whole way around the water. Shops and restaurants line the harbor, old ships sit moored along the bulkhead, and the skyline stacks up behind all of it for an easy postcard in just about any direction you point the camera. The boats and the scenery gave us plenty to look at no matter which way we turned.

I will give the harbor a fair shake here, because it did come with one drawback worth mentioning. There was a good bit of trash along the walkways and out on the water, and a windy afternoon kept pushing it into view. This was not a stray cup here and there, it was more than that, and after the spotless grounds we had just walked around the National Mall and the Capitol in Washington, the contrast was hard to miss. We also caught the skunky smell of marijuana drifting through the air in more than a few spots, which was something we never ran into over in DC. None of it ruined the day, but a little upkeep would go a long way toward matching the harbor to the setting it sits in.

Since we had a full dinner planned for later, we kept lunch on the lighter side and did our Maryland duty at Phillips Seafood. You do not come to Baltimore and skip the crab cake, so I ordered the Ultimate Crab Cake and it did not let me down. It came packed with lump meat instead of filler, which is exactly what you want in a proper Maryland crab cake. I will say it still did not quite top the crab cakes I had years back while staying in Rehoboth Beach, but it made a strong showing and was a fine way to start the afternoon.

From there we got out on the water for a sightseeing cruise with Watermark Cruises, a 45 minute loop around the harbor that turned out to be the best way to take the whole place in. The skyline looks even better from a little ways out, with the harbor spread in front of you and enough breeze coming off the water to knock the edge off the summer heat for a while.

One of the standouts from the water is the old Domino Sugar refinery, with its giant red neon sign glowing over the south side of the harbor in Locust Point. That plant has been running for more than a hundred years, and it is one of the last big working industries left on the water here. It turns out more than six million pounds of sugar a day and ships in bulk by rail and truck to names you would know, including Hershey up in Pennsylvania.

Back on land, we rode up to the Top of the World observation deck near the top of the World Trade Center which sits right there on the harbor. The view from up top is a full sweep of the city, the water, and the ballpark. Camden Yards is not off in the distance at all. It sits close enough that the long brick warehouse lining one side of the ballpark stands out with no trouble, with the field itself tucked in behind it. You can also follow the water to the southeast, out toward the mouth of the Patapsco, where the Francis Scott Key Bridge used to cross. That is the bridge that came down in March of 2024 when the container ship Dali lost power and struck one of its piers, and a replacement is being built on the same spot now. Seeing the harbor laid out like that put the whole day in order and showed how all the pieces fit together.

We capped the day over in Baltimore's Little Italy at a place called Benny's. There are Italian restaurants up and down just about every street in that neighborhood, but Benny's pulls you in with a slogan painted right on the awning that reads "Best Balls on the Block." With a pitch like that, we had no choice but to order the meatballs, and they lived up to the billing. We also tried the braciole, which is thinly sliced beef rolled and stuffed with mozzarella, breadcrumbs, and garlic, and it was very good. The chicken parmesan was excellent as well. Little Italy has that close, neighborhood feel, with narrow streets, full tables, and the smell of garlic hanging in the air, and it made for a good place to land after a day that started with the Babe and ran all the way down to the water.

All in all, I am glad we knocked the Baltimore Inner Harbor off the bucket list. The setting is hard to beat, the food more than held up its end, and the views from the water and from up top gave us a real feel for the city. A little more polish around the edges would take the place a long way, and I would love to see it shine the way that skyline deserves. We may not be in a rush to circle right back, but we were glad to give it a full afternoon.