Brian Martin
Executive Chef
Kali's Court Restaurant and Mezze Restaurant

Brian Martin was only 13 when he started in the restaurant business. In the 23 years since those days of washing dishes and doing light prep work, Brian has worked mostly in Maryland, although he spent time at Charlie Trotters in Chicago. Other highlights on his resume include serving as the sous chef at The Milton Inn and as the chef who opened Preston's 500 and helped it win "Baltimore's Best New Restaurant" in 2000.

Baltimore restaurants are using more fresh and diverse ingredients these days and also employing more global and regional flavors. It's nice to be able to go out now and order something other than crab cakes (not that I don't enjoy them) or something buried under imperial sauce!

I see more restaurants on every level becoming more creative and getting further away from the whole pre-made or ready-heat foods. I would like to see Baltimore give birth to a world destination restaurant. I also see these hip new places working their way from the inner city hotspots to encompass more of the outskirts of the city.

Kali's Court is a seafood restaurant that utilizes the bounties of the Chesapeake Bay. We use the freshest ingredients the local season offers and generally keep things pretty light as far as creams and butters go. Mezze, our Tapas restaurant, presents a menu that is almost strictly Mediterranean. It is filled with vegetable, seafood, meat, and poultry "small dishes" with an average price per dish of around four dollars.

Kali's Court menu is a modern-American style seafood menu that tends to lean toward Mediterranean influence. Mezze is a Tapas style menu with a lot of inexpensive, but fresh, quality driven selections. A lot of the dishes originated in regions of the Greek Islands.

Right now my menus are still speckled with corn, tomatoes, crabmeat, and other summer highlights, but I'm starting to bring in more squashes, mushrooms, and root vegetables.

I tend to avoid most ingredients that are processed or pre-made. I like whole, untainted foods.

I am a single, career-driven chef in charge of two very busy restaurants. On the rare occasion that I do cook at home, I love to roast off a small chicken and cook some potatoes and root vegetables with it. To me, it is one of those quintessential "home-cooked" meals that I find soul-satisfying, so to say.

I couldn't live without aromatic vegetables like shallots, garlic, and so forth. I have to include fresh herbs, also. These are the foundations to anything I create.

There are so many great new restaurants in the area! I try to hit one I haven't been to before at least once a week. Last week a friend and I went to Red Fish. I asked our server to tell the chef to send out six of his favorite aps (three at a time). We ended up having nine or ten different appetizers, some not even on the menu! It was great food and a great time. I'm also looking forward to checking out Charleston’s new menu. Very smart style, in my opinion. I hope that the portion sizes and/or "surprise courses" are there!

Daytime to evening, probably pizza. Evening to night time, probably a pint of Ben and Jerry’s! Both tend to be about a once every month or two occurrence.

Unfortunately, I am usually eating on the run. Lately I seem to be pulling off the end of a French banquette, putting some feta and red onion in it, drizzling with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and "wolfing it down." If I don't have time for that, I just grab some walnuts or pine nuts to keep me going.

Hmm, soft-shell crabs, crab meat, crab and...the Forrest Gump shrimp dialogue comes to mind.