Coming of Agg

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Aggio
614 Water Street
Baltimore, MD 21202
(410) 528-0200
www.volt-aggio.com/baltimore

We're nearly halfway through the summer and already your grand plans to learn how to surf, teach yourself Spanish in your free time and finally take up Crossfit have proven to be as ambitious and unattainable as that screenplay you wrote three pages of four years ago.

But if it's something new you're looking for, all you have to do is make your way to Power Plant Live! for Baltimore's newest culinary addition, Aggio.

Having conquered DC, Top Chef alum Bryan Voltaggio is bringing his talents to Charm City with the second iteration of his brilliant contemporary Italian restaurant. The bi-level restaurant boasts an upscale upstairs and a more casual, loungy downstairs, complete with wooden floors, a quilted leather banquet and a bar.

More: Best Places to Get a Traditional Maryland Meal This Summer

Aggio adds Mid-Atlantic inspiration to a rotating menu, using fresh, local ingredients to create unique Italian dishes. If you don't opt for the six-course tasting menu, feast on pastas like lasagna with lamb Bolognese, sheep's milk ricotta and smoked pecorino or tonnarelli nero with Maryland blue crab, jalapeno, uni and Aggio's own Old-Bay-inspired seasoning; seafood like the caccuicco with shellfish brood, shrimp, lobster, oysters, little neck clams and mussels; or meat like the porchetta with spring onions, cannellini, rabe and rhubarb mostarda.

More: E.S.P. Eat. See. Play. Baltimore

Wash it all down with a fine Italian wine or a tasty cocktail like the Peter Lawford (Barhill gin, Strega, Barolo Chinato, Byrrh, lemon and egg white) or the Joey Bishop (Espolon reposado tequila, Campari, Cappaletti, Uncouth Serrano lavender vermouth and Fernet. Sure beats Crossfit.

By Jesse Husid