MICHELLE MILLER:
00:00:17
A native of Maryland, Scott Bacon feels right at home-- Looks lovely.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:00:21
--cooking in one of Baltimore's most storied mansions, the historic Ivy Hotel--
SCOTT BACON:
00:00:27
Focaccia.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:00:29
--home to Magdalena, the highly-acclaimed restaurant rated by WineSpectator-- Ready when you guys are.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:00:36
--with a menu that delivers more than the chef's name implies.
SCOTT BACON:
00:00:40
One of the funny things is that my cooking is so vegetable-focused as well, and then have a carnivorous last name.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:00:47
Bacon's upbringing heavily influenced everything he does in the kitchen, from the British side of his family--
SCOTT BACON:
00:00:54
That's from my mom and my grandma, my nana. They're all gardeners and super into vegetable cooking.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:01:01
--to his father's people, with roots in South Carolina.
SCOTT BACON:
00:01:05
And my father is super into grilling. And he's always the one that would come home from work and make dinner for everybody. And as I got older, I started helping him a little bit.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:01:13
Teaching him a man's place is in the kitchen.
SCOTT BACON:
00:01:16
So it's all these men that were into food, I think, got me more comfortable-- very nice-- being into it.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:01:23
As his first love was music, cooking became his side hustle. Somehow, the combination caught the attention of his next boss. He came and saw my band play one night, when I was the prep cook. And then he put me on sauté the next week, when I saw the schedule. And he's like, if you can play all that stuff and do vocals at the same time, he's like, sauté should be easy. You can do that one. Thank you.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:01:46
From there, he moved South, working in Foreman Wolf in Charleston. By 26, he opened his own restaurant, Patterson Public House.
SCOTT BACON:
00:01:55
I was the executive chef, went really hard on it. Got my first write up, got burned out.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:02:01
That's when he came to Magdalena. Realistically, I wanted to be at this place, but I asked if I could just be a line cook. I was like-- Wait, wait, wait. You asked for a demotion? Yeah, because for me, it's, like, the burnout, you can-- if you go back to what you love about it, you can kind of alleviate it. So I needed to just cook and not have to-- there's so many other layers. But that's so incredibly mature to know what you need. It didn't feel like it at the time.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:02:29
It paid off in 2021--
SCOTT BACON:
00:02:31
These look great.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:02:32
--when he took over as executive chef of Magdalena, his menu highlighting the bounty of the Chesapeake Bay and its locally-sourced produce. And I'm dipping with? That's gonna be an asparagus vichyssoise cold soup. Because we cook so seasonally, you end up building a repertoire. That's one that I always like to come back to.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:02:52
But it is so clean. And when I say clean, I mean, it seems as though you don't emulsify hidden fats. There's no dairy in the soup. The creaminess comes from Yukon gold potato that we, like, rinse, until there's no starch.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:03:06
There are his seasonal beets and strawberries, with whipped farmer's cheese, bitter greens, and mint. And what is the crunch? It's a little sourdough crisp made from the sour-- we make sourdough in house, and then we just freeze it. I see it now.
SCOTT BACON:
00:03:19
Slice it really thin.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:03:20
Also on the table, the dish Chef Bacon is most excited about-- Appalachian rice porridge, made with poached farm egg, smoked wild mushrooms, and green garlic. I wanted to make the dish, by concept, vegan, obviously without the egg, but put the egg on there for-- so a meat eater wants to order it as well.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:03:40
For the main, grilled Northern Bay porgy, served with English peas, baby turnips, wild mushrooms, and marigold butter. For dessert, there's sweet pea semifreddo, with lemon sorrel granita, mint sponge cake, and white chocolate. When it's presented, you're like, aah! Like, it's avant-garde and green. And then the white chocolate just kind of takes it to the next level. Yeah. And then once you're eating it, it's--
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:04:06
You're in. You're amazed.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:04:08
You've said that this restaurant is a place of purpose. What do you mean? When a place is the underdog, when a place is bet against, and you decide to put everything that you are into that. Like, that's why the Browns are such incredible people for me.
SYLVIA BROWN:
00:04:22
This is the historical section of Baltimore.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:04:27
Sylvia and Eddie Brown are the Baltimore couple who spied the property from their capital management business across the street. Once the home of William Painter, the inventor of the bottle cap, the property was donated to the city, becoming the Department of Parks and Recreation. This space didn't exist. This was a parking lot. The historic mansion was forward of where we're standing.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:04:51
After a five-year renovation, it's now a Relais and Chateaux, among the most prestigious luxury brands of owner-operated hospitality venues in the world. There's just 60 in the US and only 1 in the state of Maryland. What does the Ivy provide Baltimore with that it didn't have before? I think it provides a place that you can call home. And that's what we want the guests to feel, at home and comfortable, and then bring their families. Because some families spend Thanksgiving here. Christmas, the same thing. I think from the very beginning, people were like, what are they trying to do? [CHUCKLES] Like, why open this place and-- I think that it was incredibly ambitious. And still, like, it's one of the coolest endeavors I've ever seen.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:05:41
But in late 2023, Bacon took a break from it all. Steak, why not?
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:05:46
He found his way back in early 2025.
SCOTT BACON:
00:05:50
My food updated massively. Being able to cook what I wanted, where I wanted, took away some layers of what was holding me back on the plate a little bit. Like, I'm just mentally, physically, everything, way healthier than I was when I left. Thank you, bro.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:06:04
Where do you want to see this place go with you at the helm?
SCOTT BACON:
00:06:07
I think that most Relais and Chateaux's, the restaurant is part of the destination of the place. I would like to bring people to Baltimore for the sole purpose of eating in this restaurant. There's no reason that we can't be like Philadelphia or New York or Chicago. And I'd like this to sort of be ground zero for that. Discovery and surprise-- I mean, every dish was unexpectedly different from the way it looked. I mean, it's the flavors in your mouth.
DANA JACOBSON:
00:06:36
This is delicious. He sent over the bread-- the breads are incredible-- and some little--
DANA JACOBSON:
00:06:41
Petit fours.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:06:42
--petit fours that are yummy, and non-alcoholic Tost-- [GLASSES CLINKING]
DANA JACOBSON:
00:06:46
Cheers.
MICHELLE MILLER:
00:06:46
--which is so delicious.
DANA JACOBSON:
00:06:47
I'll go to Baltimore for this. You must. No problem. I will. You must try it. Cheers to that.
