Joe Benny’s “best balls on the block” moved a few buildings down the block in Little Italy this summer, but the focacceria’s old space at 313 S. High St. won’t be empty for long. A wine bar with a Finnish name and a James Beard -nominated operator will be taking over the space. I have more details in the column, which also takes a look at a new weekend brunch party drawing crowds in Remington.
‘No matter what’
In Finnish, the word “sisu” describes a sense of grit and unrelenting determination. Christopher Peters recently learned the term has another meaning in Sicilian: an expression of encouragement along the lines of “you’re looking up today.”
“In Little Italy, it’s a good combination,” Peters said recently as he inches closer to opening Sisu , his new wine bar. “We’re going to get this bar open no matter what.”
He’s been working on the concept for the past 18 months, and hopes to have the doors open by early 2025. The tavern was granted a conditional use zoning approval earlier this month and will next head to the city’s liquor board for a beer, wine and liquor license.
Though this is his first business in Baltimore, Peters has spent the past 16 years managing bars up and down the East Coast. With the Pat Croce and Company hospitality group, where he serves as beverage director, he helped open and run more than a half-dozen bars and restaurants in State College, Pennsylvania. The group has several other properties — including a pirate museum — in Key West and St. Augustine, Florida.
Separately, Peters is also the beverage director for Teresa’s Cafe and Teresa’s Next Door in the Philadelphia suburbs. It was at Teresa’s Next Door — regulars call it TND for short — that he was part of a team nominated as semifinalists for the James Beard Awards ’ outstanding bar program category in 2018.
Peters will again put an emphasis on fine wine, spirits and beer at Sisu, which a zoning application describes as a “drinking destination drawing customers on their way to and from dinner.” Biodynamic wines, produced without pesticides, will be a focus of the menu, which will also offer cocktails, whiskey flights and beer and cider, both on draft and in bottles.
Sisu will serve snacks, including cheese and charcuterie boards, gelato and pastries from Little Italy neighbor Ovenbird Bakery , to pair with the drinks. The bar will also have a small wine shop for bottles to go.
“We’re not going to be a liquor store,” Peters said, but we will have the opportunity to sell some capacity of biodynamic wines you can’t find anywhere else.”
Unlike some of its counterparts, Sisu will not have live music or other entertainment.
Peters has been living in Little Italy for the past year as he readies for Sisu’s opening (he has two partners in the business, Jeff Sorg and Mike Croce ). In that time, Baltimore “genuinely has become one of my favorite cities,” he said.
“I love underdog cities and I love Baltimore for being an underdog city.”
Brunch party
Matt Williams is known for his soap, but lately he’s also been producing pit beef.
Williams, a co-owner of Mount Royal Soaps in Remington, got the urge this summer to learn how to make the smoky, thin-cut roast beef commonly topped with raw onions and horseradish. He joined forces with friends Mike Colligan and Richard D’Souza , the former owner of nearby Sweet 27 , and soon enough they were mounting a pop-up pit beef stand called Illegal Tender.
“It was meant to be kind of like a community pit beef stand,” Williams said about the pop-up, which prices its pit beef sandwiches at a relatively affordable $10. “It turns out, with Richard’s help and Mike’s help, we make a really good pit beef sandwich.”
The pit beef now has a platform at Remington Brunch Club , a new event held every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in a parklet outside the soap shop. Williams and his Illegal Tender partners are among the recurring food vendors in a brunch lineup that also features breakfast burritos from chef Carlos Raba of Nana and Clavel , and shrimp rolls from John Anane-Sefah of Mr. Roast Beast and Asanka . Other recent guests since the brunch club launched in September include The Charmery and Big Softy , who teamed up last week to serve buckwheat bourbon apple pancakes topped with cinnamon ice cream.
“It’s just been a really fun, good neighbor scene,” Williams said of the event. “The word that comes to mind is a Baltimore City collab at its finest.” He plans to host the brunch club until the weather turns “bitterly cold.”
As for the key to good pit beef? Williams didn’t want to divulge too many trade secrets, but said he swears by a professional deli slicer to achieve the perfect thickness (or in this case, thin-ness) of beef. D’Souza, meanwhile, puts his own touch on Illegal Tender’s sandwiches with a spicy tiger sauce, pickled onions and beef that’s marinated in a special spice blend for up to a week.
“There’s just a ton of flavor involved,” Williams said.
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