Head on over to Maryland Avenue in your finest green garb for the annual Irish Festival on Sunday, June 17! Local merchants and vendors will be offering and showcasing a variety of art, antiques, fashion, home-interior, jewelry, crafts, food and kid’s activities. Taking place in the heart of historic Annapolis, the festival will run all along Maryland Avenue and State Circle from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.

Make sure to catch the parade which will begin at Main Street, run through State Circle and end at Maryland Avenue. The Chesapeake Caledonian Pipes and Drums Band will be keeping the Irish spirit alive with a large group of dancers behind them, even local kids from the community!

Bistro dining is available throughout the day at Galway Bay Irish Pub at 63 Maryland Ave and also at Harry Browne’s on 66 State Circle.

Great Irish music will be provided from noon until 5 p.m. by Celtic Crossing, Up on Blocks and The Bridgette Michaels Band. Free parking is available at the State Garage at Calvert and St. Johns Street. So whether you have any Irish in your blood or not, come celebrate the spirit in this fun-filled festival for the entire family!

Start your summer off right and come out to the second annual International Food, Wine & Hops festival on Saturday, June 9. The event will take place from 1 p.m.-5 p.m. along West Street, within the limits of Westgate Circle and Church Circle. Sixteen different restaurants and participants will be distributing unique samples of food, beer, wine and more. This year’s participants include:

Azure, Carpaccio, India’s, Fado Irish Pub, Metropolitan Kitchen & Lounge, Lemongrass, O’Callaghan Hotel, Tsunami, 49 West, Wild Orchid Café, Crush, Stan & Joes, El Toro, Luna Blu, Rams Head Tavern and Annapolis Collection Gallery.

This year, Luna Blu will be serving fresh, in-house, mozzarella caprese made with creamy buffalo mozzarella and local tomatoes. They will also be sampling Chianti and Italian Orvieto wines.

The fun doesn’t stop with the food and beverages; live music and entertainment will be provided throughout the day at various locations. The interesting and diverse variety will include Irish dancing, bagpipes, Flamenco, a Mariachi band, an Italian opera singer, a Thai dragon and a Japanese Tea Ceremony.

So come experience a plethora of delicious food and drink and the opportunity to learn a bit more on the diverse culture that is within the great city of Annapolis. Tickets are only $30, but a set of four can be purchased at the discounted price of $100. Last year’s pre-sale tickets sold out, so get them fast! You can purchase them online through the following link: http://tickets.marylandhall.org/eventperformances.asp?evt=860&c=52&pg=

Once you have a confirmation receipt, you must exchange it for a wristband at one of the following locations after 12:30 p.m.: Metropolitan Kitchen & Lounge, Tsunami, Westin Hotel lobby or Loews Annapolis Hotel lobby. Valid photo IDs are required. The event is rain or shine, but we’re expecting a beautiful summer day!

Any dining guide to top cuisine in Annapolis MD would have to include the good restaurants along West Street. One would expect to find seafood restaurants among the restaurants in Annapolis since so much of Annapolis revolves around its location on Chesapeake Bay, where crabs and other types of seafood are plentiful. But, a traditional seafood restaurant or fish restaurant is far from the only choice available in Annapolis. The city is modern and diverse and the restaurant menus reflect that.

Located in the Loews Hotel, the Breeze has only 58 seats. Its simple, modern elegance warrants business casual attire. The menu features local products from the nearby waters and farms. The top cuisine prepared by its award winning chef includes crab and lobster pot pie at $27 and grilled pork loin with caramelized apples and brandy sauce at $22. Small plate options are also available at dinner. At lunch, prices are slightly lower and sandwiches are available. Dessert choices include hazelnut mousse and passion fruit crème brulee. Breeze is not a typical hotel restaurant. Although open daily for breakfast, it is closed for lunch on the weekends and for dinner on Sundays and Mondays.
There are many options close by on West Street, however. Open seven days a week from 4:30 PM to 1:30 AM, Level is a romantic casual lounge, complete with exposed brick and candlelight, serving small plates ranging from cheese selections to salads, soups, pizzas and light entrees. Sharing and combining is encouraged so a wide variety of tastes can be experienced in a single visit. Prices run from $4 per wedge of cheese to $12 for hummus with chipotle-agave nectar. Homemade seasonal desserts present a few surprises. Warm chocolate chip cookies are served with chocolate milk. Black ale is served with vanilla ice cream as a beer float. Sorbet can be paired with a New Zealand ice wine. There is a wide variety of wines, liquors, liqueurs, specialty cocktails and even house made spirits on hand.
The Rams Head Tavern offers not only food and beer and ale selections but also live entertainment. Its seafood choices include traditional Maryland crab cakes. Angus beef is served as is a grilled steak with apple chutney and sweet potato fries. Sandwiches and salads are also available at this comfortable casual tavern where prices run from $6.95 for a bowl of cream of crab soup made from Maryland crabs to $29.95 for a Delmonico rib eye steak with shrimp and crab meat béarnaise.
Another of the good restaurants along West Street is Tsunami. This trendy, dark, casual restaurant is as loud and lively as the tidal wave its name evokes. Open for lunch on weekdays and for dinner nightly, its sushi bar remains open until 1 a.m. Tsunami offers food with a Pan Asian fusion twist, including a wide selection of sushi choices as well as meat and seafood options. Prices for main dinner entrees are from $18 to $33 while the unique sides are extra. Sushi servings run from $4 to $10. Kobe beef sliders are $14 and strip steak with Hoisin sauce and fries is $18 at lunch.

So, while a seafood restaurant or a fish restaurant might be expected of restaurants in Annapolis, and seafood restaurants do abound, we hope this dining guide of restaurant menus can make everyone happy in Annapolis MD.

Stocked with fresh catches from Chesapeake Bay, Main Street restaurants in Annapolis offer locals and visitors some of the finest seafood found anywhere. Operating from these aged and tall storefronts, chefs dish up top cuisine at outstanding seafood restaurants while patrons enjoy unique decor and tantalizing smells.

Wherever you go, the restaurants in Annapolis present variety to satisfy every palate.

For an upscale experience with the sweet sounds of live jazz in the background, check out Aqua Terra at 164 Main Street. As a seafood restaurant with Italian and Asian flair, Aqua Terra serves up everything from sushi to pizza. The Tempura Crunch Roll is a sweet bite with pineapple and shrimp, while Tyler’s Fire Roll steps it up as spicy sriracha is paired with salmon, cream cheese and flying fish caviar. Reservations are recommended, and you’ll fit in with business casual or a notch higher. Sushi averages about $10 a roll, while entrees run about $25.

Another in the series of good restaurants in downtown Annapolis is O’Brien’s Oyster Bar at 113 Main Street. The building dates back to the American Revolution and patrons are surrounded with images of local history and the Naval Academy. But this seafood restaurant will quickly bring your attention back to the table with its top cuisine. Start with the luscious Cream of Crab Soup and move to the Colossal Crab Cake on a bed of pilaf and fried green tomatoes. The restaurant menus for brunch and dinner include other inventive fare, from Crab Benedict in the morning to Rockfish O’Brien’s, a dinner plate of striped bass topped with crab and asparagus. Entrees start at $20, but sandwiches and bar food are comparable to chain restaurants.

For a straightforward fish restaurant in Annapolis MD, you’ll get your fill at Buddy’s Crabs and Ribs at 100 Main Street. The buffet lines are open daily, or order off the restaurant menus for salads, seafood and sandwiches. Prices depend on your tastes — you can pay about $15 for the Big Buddy Crab Cake sandwich or $45 for a plate of King, Alaskan and blue crabs. Kids under 10 eat for free. Buddy’s is extremely casual and inviting.

While different preparations of crabs are the Main Street specialty in Annapolis MD, this local dining guide offers more than just seafood restaurants.

Piccola Roma, 200 Main St., steps out with heavy doses of cream, herbs and fresh ingredients to plate classic Italian dishes. The Veal Saltimbocca lives up to its name by exciting your taste buds with a tangy sauce including prosciutto and sage. And just in case you prefer to call it a fish restaurant, Piccola offers a variety of stuffed ravioli, risotto and pasta dishes with scallops, shrimp and crab. Expect to pay $15-25 for a main dish and come as you are, as the white linen dining room has a feeling of home.

And perhaps no trip to see the good restaurants of Annapolis would be complete without a stop at Chick and Ruth’s Delly at 165 Main Street. It’s Americana at its finest. Come in the morning to say the Pledge of Allegiance with a crowd, or stop in the afternoon and freeze your brain with a 6-pound shake. You’ll find burgers and crab cakes here, and it’s reported you can even get something green like a salad or wrap amid this meaty decadence.

For anyone in the Main Street area, wandering the historic Annapolis cityscape and finding themselves on the peckish side, there are many great dining options available. Fish is a natural favorite for the area and rightfully so, but there are plenty of dining choices available in the Main Street Area.

For those in the Annapolis MD area, there are many seafood restaurants with top cuisine to choose from. Whether you are looking for a seafood restaurant for the tasty and famous Maryland crabs on Maryland Ave or just a hole in the wall fish restaurant somewhere on State Circle, Annapolis has you covered. With so many good restaurants in this area, the choices may be overwhelming.

Greystone Grill: Fine Dining

In and around the Maryland Ave area, there are plenty of seafood restaurants and steakhouses to choose from in Annapolis. The Greystone Grill has a restaurant menu which is a combination of steak and seafood restaurants rolled into one. For starters, the patron may choose the sautéed sea scallops wrapped in a center-cut slab of bacon and served on a bed of baby spinach with a citrus sauce. For a seafood dinner, one may choose the chicken and crab, a choice dish of lump crab meat combined with a pan seared chicken breast in a cream sherry sauce. The Greystone Grill is considered a good restaurant by all standards so be prepared to dine in business casual attire and bring your wallet. Prices for entrees range from eighteen dollars for a vegetarian plate to over thirty dollars for other dishes.

Galway Bay Irish Pub: A Casual Experience

Regular diners around the Maryland Ave area will relay no better place for brew and crabs is the Galway Bay Irish Pub. Not only is Galway Bay considered one of the good restaurants, but it’s a great place to spend time after hours as well. Guinness rules the roost and many diners start with the Guinness Fried Oysters, which are considered the pride of Chesapeake Bay. For dinner, you can enjoy a wide range of fare from salads, seafood entrees and traditional Irish food. The Galway Bay Irish Pub is a little more casual than others found in a dining guide. Come as you are and enjoy one of the many foods on their extensive lunch and dinner restaurant menus where prices range from about ten dollars for appetizers to twenty dollars for entrees. Locals consider this place one of the best restaurants in Annapolis. Whether you are looking for a seafood restaurant or a place to hang out, give Galway Bay a visit.

Harry Browne’s

For a lighter side of Annapolis, you might want to visit Harry Browne’s on State Circle in Annapolis MD. Harry Browne’s is a casual atmosphere that is home to the happy hour five dollar burger. Considered by this dining guide as one of the best places to have a beer after work, Harry Browne’s offers its guests beer, wine, and a full liquor bar and restaurant menus for lunch and dinner. Harry Browne’s is also said to have one of the best soup menus in the city. One can enjoy a five-dollar burger during the hours of four and six o’clock or enjoy an entrée such as a seared filet of salmon over a fried rice cake. Although casual attire, Harry Browne’s is not just a fish restaurant so be prepared to pay upwards of thirty dollars for some entrees. Although a bit pricey, patrons hail Harry Browne’s as one of the better restaurants in Annapolis with top cuisine for every taste.

Seafood restaurants in the State Circle and Annapolis area abound — although some are different than others. Many people visit one per week, and in a short amount of time have a go-to favorite they recommend above all others. We’re a little more general than that, so take your pick and have a good time.