Maryland’s First Lady Dawn Moore will preside over the official ribbon cutting and grand opening of The Fishmonger’s Daughter on Thursday at 11 a.m. in Catonsville. The restaurant will officially open for business on Friday.
The Fishmonger’s Daughter is a continuation of the 140-year Faidley’s Seafood restaurant tradition. Owned by Damye Hahn and operated with her son, Will Hahn, the new restaurant has undergone six years of intense and painstaking historical restoration in preparation for this moment. The space was once a branch of Heidelbach’s grocery store, which operated for decades before becoming Plymouth Wallpaper, which closed in 2017.
Damye and Will Hahn represent fourth- and fifth-generation members of the Faidley family. Bill and Nancy Faidley Devine, third generation owners of Faidley’s, will be at the grand opening event, as will community and regional leaders and other specially invited guests.
Taking over the former Plymouth Wallpaper building felt like a bit of a homecoming to Damye Hahn, who spoke to Baltimore Fishbowl about her family’s Faidley’s legacy, her Catonsville roots, and how the new restaurant came to fruition.
“I was born in Catonsville but grew up right over the line in Old Ellicott City,” Hahn said. “So, my parents are still in their home off of Frederick Road. I’ve only driven one road in my life, and that’s Frederick.”
She is proud of the fact that theirs is one of the oldest continually operating family businesses in Maryland.
“My great-grandfather started in 1886,” Hahn said. “We’ve been feeding a lot of people.”
Hahn spoke glowingly of Fishmonger’s culinary team, which includes Scott Bacon and Maria Bell. Bacon is the executive chef, and he was formerly executive chef at Magdalena, A Maryland Bistro at The Ivy Hotel. Bell is head of pastry and beverage and is a part-time instructor teaching hospitality management courses at Anne Arundel Community College. She holds a Grand Diplôme, Professional Pastry Arts from the French Culinary Academy.
“Everything we’re doing here is Maryland-centric from our menu,” Hahn said. “On the 18th we’ll have the Department of Agriculture here, because we are one of the few restaurants that do primarily sell Maryland crabmeat. We always have, because as long as we’ve been around, we’ve had connections with the shore and everybody on the Bay that will sell directly to us… For as old as we are, we want people to come in and know that they can get something that truly, truly speaks of Maryland and the Chesapeake.”
The Fishmonger’s Daughter is “True Blue,” a designation conferred by the state of Maryland on a restaurant that makes their crab cakes from local crabmeat. The program requires at least 75% of crab product used annually to be harvested and/or processed in the state of Maryland. As proof, the restaurant submits annual copies of sales receipts and invoices to the Maryland Department of Agriculture for verification.
“Everything Scott does is unbelievable,” Hahn said. “He’s taking the whole bodies of the crabs and boiling them down and making our crab stock. Everything is fresh-made and in house. Even all of our rolls and our all of our pastries are all made in house. All the syrups for all the cocktails are made in house.”
Hahn emphasized the importance of being Maryland-centric while connecting with the local businesses in their new location. In many ways, that is where the restoration came in. She has a background in art and has always loved restoration. Hahn attended the Schuler School of Fine Arts and has seen several large restoration projects through from start to finish, so the notion of a six-year project did not scare her.
Many of the tables are custom made by Jason Dawson at Maker’s Woodshop from the 100-year-old beams Hahn had to take from the roof of the building when she razed it.
“That’s all 100-year-old heart pine,” Hahn said. “When I gave him the project a couple of years ago… he decided to open up a retail store in Catonsville on Frederick Road. Well, that is his first retail outlet, and it’s down the street, so anybody who likes my tables can walk down the street and have Jason make them one.”
The taller tables are made from wood Hahn took from her father’s Ellicott City property over 20 years ago. The tables are maple, and inlaid with oyster shells that were served to their customers in the downtown Faidley’s location. When Hahn says nothing went to waste, she means it.
She salvaged the copper that graced the building’s storefront and Dundalk artist Eric Magnuson turned it into an enormous 22-foot sculpture of a rockfish. Hahn, her husband, and their friends cleaned up shingles that had been pulled off the building, and those shingles are now the scales on the rockfish sculpture.
“It was definitely a lot of cool things that were collaborative efforts by a lot of artisans local to Maryland,” Hahn said. “So, there’s a lot of fun things when you go through the building, a lot of little Easter eggs of history… The building has turned out beautifully. I put my heart and soul in this one.”
The restaurant’s capacity for seating is 168, and the event space on the second floor, called The Plymouth Room (a nod to the former wallpaper store), seats 300.
“It was almost as if this was kind of meant for me to take on,” Hahn said. “We’ve been asked probably a thousand times to open restaurants in different strip malls and different places, and it was never the right space.”
It turned out the right space was on the road she has always driven.
The Fishmonger’s Daughter is located at 720 Frederick Road in Catonsville, Maryland. It will be open for lunch and dinner service. Reservations can be made online at Open Table.
