Restaurateurs are following the young professionals into Baltimore City. (Fancy pizza is leading the charge, we hear. Call us when a five-star hot dog stand pulls up.) One expert tells us merchants now consider Baltimore a worthy place to expand.

MacKenzie Retail's Bowie Arnot (flanked by colleagues Michael Gioioso and Henry Deford,his co-authors of The Digest: MacKenzies Restaurant Quarterly) tells us Harbor East's Oceanaire, Gordon Biersch, and Lebanese Taverna all came from DC locations, and NY restaurants are coming, too. Actor Chazz Palminteri partnered with a local to open Harbor East's Chazz: A Bronx Original pizza restaurant. Artisinal pizza is a big thing in Baltimore, Bowie says. In Hampden, Paul Giannone from Brooklyn is opening Paulie Gee's, a wood-fired pizza spot. Hampden, Remington, and Woodberry, Bowie adds, are poised to join Harbor East, Federal Hill, Canton, and Fells Point as Baltimore City hotspots. In all but Harbor East, chefs are settling into the smaller footprints, say 3,000 SF of existing buildings, encouraging tony, trendy eateries.