Penthouse Club Travel Diaries: Baltimore
Baltimore Dreams — 36 Hours in Baltimore
The Penthouse Club traveled to Baltimore last week to begin Phase 1 of a massive renovation project that will completely reimagine the 4-story nightclub at 615 Fallsway. A 5-minute drive from Inner Harbor, The Penthouse Club — Baltimore is being completely redesigned: two-story LED wall with VIP mezzanine seating? Check. Penthouse Prime steakhouse? Check. Third-floor speakeasy with a private elevator and luxury VIP suites? Check, check, and check.
As construction continues, we thought you might be interested in a list of where we stayed, ate, and drank while we hatched our master plan for the hottest new gentlemen’s club on the Boshwash Corridor.
Baltimore Dreams: Hotel
With an A+ location in the heart of Fells Point, you can’t beat the Pendry if you’re looking for upscale accommodations on Baltimore Harbor. The massive brick building at Rec Pier, formerly a warehouse that stored port cargo, reopened in 2017 as a 128-room hotel and features the Rec Pier Chophouse and Cannon Room whiskey bar. The rooms were lovely — nautical Ralph Lauren vibes with lots of wood, brass, and leather trim — and bathrooms were nicely sized (Deluxe King $528/night).
Sadly, we were too busy *working* to enjoy the pool, but it looked wonderful.
Bedding: 8.5/10 | Water pressure: 7/10
If you find the Pendry booked, and you want to spend money ($700+/night), local sources confirmed the Four Seasons (also on the harbor) and The Ivy (downtown) are the next best options.
Baltimore Dreams: Dinner
Consistently on a quest to find the best sushi in every city, we had to try Azumi, an upscale Japanese restaurant in the Four Seasons with a reputation for having the highest quality fish flown in straight from Tokyo. We dined late and barely beat the kitchen closing, but the service was good and the courses came out quickly. As promised, the fish was delicious and high quality, although everything was on the small side and there was nothing too creative about their “special nigiri” — Foie gras dollops on seared A5 wagyu ($42/two pieces) and truffle shavings atop otoro ($34/two pieces) were delicious, if not exactly ground breaking. We loved the A5 fried rice ($39), and the liquor and sake menu was impressively overwhelming.
Azumi, like many of the hot spot bars and restaurants in our Baltimore dreams, happens to be an Atlas Restaurant Group property. These guys seem to have a monopoly on Baltimore’s F&B scene so they must be doing something right.
Thames Street Oyster House also came highly recommended and we felt lucky to get a last-minute reservation as this Fells Point gem was packed. Our group dined al fresco under the covered patio out front and enjoyed multiple courses from the raw bar, including the Grandiose Shellfish Tower ($90), which absolutely lived up to its name. Hot appetizers and main courses were also great ($15-37), and the service was friendly and attentive. An easy 10/10 on odds of us returning and we’d definitely recommend if you find yourself in the mood for great seafood and classic New England dishes at reasonable prices.
Baltimore Dreams: Drinks
Cocktails ($18/each) and appetizers (a $70 charcuterie plate) at the Pendry hotel’s upscale Italian steakhouse, Rec Pier Chophouse, were great and service was A+ (at a minimum, if that tells you something). You will find the restaurant’s setting, which faces the hotel’s entrance on Thames Street, nothing short of stunning.
Of course we can’t miss an opportunity to plug “drinks” at The Penthouse Club. Open ‘til 2am, Penthouse rests a short drive from downtown and a great spot for an after-hour beverage ($12-15 for classic drinks), if we may say so ourselves. Grab a seat at the bar to enjoy a show from the main stage, or bring your crew and share a bottle of premium tequila or champagne ($300+) at one of our reserved tables or private VIP rooms. With the hottest women in town on full display, you will find no better place to enjoy a game, fight, or premier adult entertainment than the Penthouse Club.
Granted much of this falls into the Shameless Plug category, but if you cannot brag about yourself sometimes, why in the world would anyone else want to brag about you? Besides, it ain’t bragging if you can do it, right? (OK. So that might have been a famous baseball pitcher speaking from Mid America, but the philosophy fits everywhere.) Still, we did think a bit more “illustration” might be in order, so we asked Penthouse Clubs if they had any architect renderings or anything that might class up the joint here, as it were. They did not. So instead we pulled a gallery from a giant directory of Penthouse Club photographs and went with those.
Truth be told, we cannot be 100% certain that the architect drawings do not in fact already exist, because after reading through this collection of Baltimore Dreams again, it would not surprise us if the group was angling to finagle another trip to chase down some of that fine Baltimore food again. You may also have noticed that the “header” picture on this page does not so much match the “other” pictures on this page. The Executive Edior of Online decided that the graphic art option more fit the theme of the article, to which we responded, “Maybe, but ours was a lot prettier. So we’ll use it at the end.”
