Meet the tastemakers in Berlin, Md., an inspiring small town just beyond the beach
By WP BrandStudio
When Justine Zegna moved to Berlin, Md., she had hardly finished unpacking when her neighbors knocked on her door to introduce themselves. By the time they left, they were all fast friends — one even left behind a gift that said, “Welcome home.”
“That’s just how it works here,” says Zegna, who is the owner and head chef at Blacksmith, a farm-to-table restaurant in Berlin. “You get along with everyone because that’s just how we do.”
Five years ago, when Zegna was deciding where to open up a restaurant, Berlin was the obvious choice. The town’s scenery and atmosphere made it a perfect place to host a business, and being a 15-minute drive from the ocean gave her access to some of the freshest seafood in the world. But it was the people who made her fall in love with Berlin, and it is the people who have made this charming small town one of the most popular destinations on the Maryland coast.
Named the Coolest Small Town in America in 2014, Berlin is known for an eclectic mix of artists, craftsmen and small-business owners. Its brick-lined Main Street maintains the atmosphere of a century past, while its forward-thinking shops and restaurants redefine what it means to be a small town. According to Lisa Challenger, director of Worcester County Tourism, the town’s unique sensibility comes from an effort to make its downtown “strip mall-proof” — and irreplaceable.
“You can’t replace downtown Berlin,” she says. “The shops are unique, the retail experience is unique, the dining is unique.”
From the porch of the Atlantic Hotel, which offers electric blankets in winter and personal fans in summer for anyone who wants to relax in its famous rocking chairs, to the Burley Oak Brewery, which Challenger recommends for its excellent selection of IPAs, Berlin is a destination where every block offers something new. A short drive from the beach and from stunning Assateague Island, where wild horses roam the dunes, it is a vacation destination like nowhere else.
And since she moved here, Zegna’s Blacksmith restaurant has become an integral part of that scene. Zegna is known for her thoughtful use of impeccable local ingredients, and for making a crab cake so good that, when she was working at a restaurant in a different town, someone once broke into their kitchen to steal them.
“He had cooked two crab cakes and eaten them,” says Zegna. “He was cooking four more, and he was preparing to steal the rest.”
That particular experience hasn’t been repeated since her move to Berlin—Zegna says the town always feels so safe—but her crab cakes remain criminally good, a symbol of the indescribable feeling that this town engenders in locals and newcomers alike.
“You can just feel the energy in this town,” says Andrea Canon, owner of the home furnishings store HOUSE. Like Zegna, Canon is a transplant, a Baltimore native who moved to Berlin after several years of vacationing here.
“We had been visiting Berlin and admiring it for a few years prior to buying a house here,” she says. “We just fell in love with the quaint, small-town vibe.”
Canon and her husband quit their jobs in corporate America to chase their passion for home decor, and she’s found herself a natural fit in a place where artists and small-business owners work side by side. After six years, she has a friend in every shop and on every corner.
“You can’t walk down the street without running into somebody,” she says. “ People love to stop and have a conversation.”
Independent book publisher Stephanie Fowler, owner of Salt Water Media, discovered that sense of camaraderie on the first day her business opened, when Robin Tomaselli, proprietor of Baked Dessert Cafe and Gallery, welcomed her to the neighborhood with a platter of cupcakes.
“You know,” Fowler says Tomaselli told her, “what’s good for you is good for me, and what’s good for me is good for you.”
It took Fowler some time to understand that, she says, but now she realizes that in a town this tight-knit, it’s up to every business owner to work their hardest to make sure that customers and tourists come back again and again. That same can-do spirit is prevalent among the town’s artists and craftsmen, who have made Berlin a haven of creativity.
“I think the artists feel a sense of community,” says Challenger. “Fellow artists help each other out and cross-promote each other.”
That attitude is on display in December, when all of the town’s artists open their studios to visitors, as well as during the regular festivals for which Berlin turns Main Street into an open-air gallery and mall, such as May 10’s Reggae Play Day. Glassblower Jeff Auxer appreciates that community spirit, and he says he takes inspiration from Berlin’s one-of-a-kind charm—particularly when it comes to food.
“It’s not gonna be your plain-Jane food,” he says. “Everything is well thought-out, and the menus are changing all the time.”
Part of that is thanks to chefs like Zegna, of course, and their constant efforts to innovate and improve upon their menus. Part of that is the ceaseless efforts by business people and other locals to make sure that there’s always something new to do in Berlin. But some of it might be due to the town itself—15 minutes from wild horses and the beach, with a classic sense of style that never grows old, Berlin is just a special place.
Or, as Andrea Canon puts it, “It’s just the cutest little town.”
Content From
