The Dive

The Dive opened in November 2022 at 3123 Elliott Street in Canton, from Baltimore native and Top Chef alum Jesse Sandlin, who also runs Sally O's in Highlandtown. The building has been several bars before this one — Fuisine most recently, and the Regal Beagle before that — and Sandlin painted the exterior brickwork cobalt blue with a deep-sea diver on it, which is the clearest signal of the tone. Baltimore Magazine, reviewing it, noted what makes the room work: the purple booths filled with families, people walking dogs and pushing strollers, and the explicit sense that this was not going to be old men playing video poker by the bar. The food is unapologetic — hubcap-sized double pepperoni pizzas, a pickle pizza with Havarti, tiger sauce and dill, a fried bologna sandwich that is actually mortadella topped with fried pickles, and foot-long hot dogs under bacon-jalapeño relish or crab dip. It serves 4pm to 1am Monday through Saturday, kitchen until midnight, closed Sundays, no reservations.

The non-alcoholic offering is one properly built drink rather than a list, and it is worth the trip for what it demonstrates. The Mockingbird, as The Baltimore Banner described it, is a zesty mix of cranberry, lime, cinnamon honey, aquafaba and ginger beer. Aquafaba is the liquid from a tin of chickpeas, and it is the vegan substitute for egg white — it whips to a foam and gives a shaken drink the silky body that zero-proof drinks almost always lack. Using it in a neighbourhood bar's single mocktail, rather than in a cocktail-programme showpiece, says more about the kitchen's standards than a long list would. One practical caveat: the bar's website is live but its menu pages currently show placeholder text rather than an actual menu, so the drink list has to be asked about in person.