On a warm Wednesday evening earlier this month, Clavel — a new Mexican-inspired restaurant in Remington — celebrated its arrival with an invite-only party for friends, family, neighbors and restaurant-industry types.
Elbow-rubbing events like this are usually leisurely soirees. But on this night, Remington's latest eatery and bar was buzzing with activity. Impressed first-timers chattered away, as the constantly-in-motion staff took orders for tacos and margaritas. Just-arrived managers from other bars could be seen pointing at already-delivered plates, asking patrons what they ordered.
With the bustle palpable, nothing was soft about this "soft opening."
At the heart of the controlled chaos was 28-year-old Lane Harlan, the owner who had spent months forming and designing Clavel from the studs up with help from friends and family. Like any restaurateur opening a new operation, her night was spent putting out unexpected fires.
She could probably put it in the middle of the desert, and people would flock. She knows what she's doing.
"Our wireless ordering system stopped working, so I had to jump back in the kitchen and call out orders," said Harlan, seated outside of a Remington coffee shop, a little more than a week later.
No one seemed to notice or care; they were too enthralled with the minimalist space, food, drinks and Georgia O'Keeffe-inspired ambiance. Like her speakeasy-inspired hit W.C. Harlan less than two blocks away, Clavel has opened as an attractive, fully formed establishment that appears as surefooted as it is renovated (the location was last home to Corky's Grill). With confidence in her vision and a lack of regard for how other restaurateurs operate, Harlan is helping to forge Remington's evolving reputation for well-crafted food and drinks in atmospheres unlike the Baltimore norm. Her aim is to create destinations, not temporary stops on the way to somewhere else.
"I wouldn't want to really be somewhere that was so close to other places," Harlan said. "I like that we're a little island."
Harlan's business approach is heavily informed by her upbringing and passion for traveling. She was born in the Philippines, where her father met her mother on his Air Force base. In typical military-brat fashion, every two years her family would move to a new state, from California and North Dakota to Texas and Florida. After her family retired to Waldorf, Harlan moved to Bolton Hill to study French and political science at the University of Baltimore, Baltimore County.
A study abroad trip to Paris as a sophomore in Spring 2009 changed everything for Harlan. In love with the French lifestyle's emphasis on fine dining and intellectual curiosity, she dropped out of her education program to stay longer than expected. Even when she came back to the States at the end of 2009, Harlan was determined to get back to Paris. In September 2010, she returned to teach English in Saintes, France for a year. Her time in France undoubtedly made an impact on Harlan's general outlook.
"I got my sentimental education there ... that was where I feel like I grew up and matured," Harlan said. "My personality just went straight for France, and I became pretty obsessed with it."
Harlan eventually returned to Baltimore for good in 2011. Around this time, she dedicated herself to the restaurant industry. (Harlan never finished her degree at UMBC.) After bussing tables at the now-closed Brass Elephant in Mount Vernon, Harlan moved on to Jack's Bistro in Canton in 2011, where her career path fully crystallized. After earning the trust of management, Harlan began bartending, which planted the initial seeds for W.C. Harlan.
"That was the first time I had freedom behind the bar," Harlan said. "They gave me freedom to play with ingredients and experiment and kind of figure out my own way. When I was there, I was just thinking the whole time, 'Man, I could just do this. I love this.'"
Ted Stelzenmuller, chef and owner of Jack's Bistro, called Harlan one of the most talented people he's worked with in more than 25 years in the industry.
"She became so much more focused at her time here when she realized what she wanted to do with her life, and you could see it change in her demeanor," Stelzenmuller said.
He is not surprised by Harlan's success, and believes her plan to create destinations is working.
"She could probably put it in the middle of the desert, and people would flock," Stelzenmuller said. "She knows what she's doing."
After a few years at Jack's, Harlan opened W.C. Harlan in January 2013, and it quickly established her as a clever, sharp-minded figure to watch in the city's rapidly improving and evolving bar scene. Trends like having an expansive craft beer selection or bathing the interior with ample lighting were completely ignored. Instead, W.C. Harlan felt like a new experience heavily influenced by the past. Antiques and knick-knacks found at local thrift stores and novels like "Moby Dick" and "Ulysses" line the walls where other places would put TVs and mirrors.
W.C. Harlan's unmistakable European touches speak directly to its owner's love of France and its residents' pursuit of simple joys.
"I'd hate to call myself a bon vivant, but I love the pleasures of eating and drinking. I think it's an experience," Harlan, who moved to Tuscany-Canterbury in 2014, said. "The aesthetic for me is so important because I want people to feel like they're not in a themed restaurant, but they're in a place."
Following the same principle, Harlan eyed her next endeavor, the wider-in-scope Clavel. W.C. Harlan has five full-time employees, while Clavel has a staff of 20, she said.
Inspired by a trip to Sinaloa, Mexico, a few years ago, Harlan looked to bring authentic recipes and traditions of the area back to Remington. Carlos Raba, a family member who grew up in Sinaloa, heads the kitchen, which serves tacos, handmade tortillas and other Mexican cuisine.
Beyond the food, Harlan wants Clavel to become synonymous with mezcal, the wide-ranging, distilled spirit made from different types of agave plants that has become Harlan's latest obsession. In March, Harlan spent a week in Oaxaca, Mexico to learn firsthand how mezcal is made. Her days were often spent walking the state's hills with an empty two-liter bottle of Coke she'd fill with mezcal after introducing herself to the multi-generational producers. She immediately appreciated the care and effort taken in their artisanal processes.
At Clavel, which she owns with her husband, Matthew Pierce, and Raba, Harlan acts like a sommelier for mezcal. She said she often talks to curious patrons about the nuances and proper techniques of tasting the spirit.
"Take the first sip, keep your mouth closed, breathe out through your nose," she explained. "Second sip, you want to smell it, sip it and then take a deep breath out of your nose slowly, and the aromas will start to rise. You have to warm up your palate."
I feel like we shocked a lot of people, and then gave people a lot of ideas about where you could put your businesses.
The mezcal served at Clavel is nothing like the familiar, sugar-filled tequila mass-consumed with lime wedges, Harlan said. (Clavel, which officially opened on June 5, serves tequila as well, though.) Clavel uses mezcal in cocktails, but she recommends starting with a tasting wheel of the spirit, and allowing the trained staff to educate in the process. For example, Harlan said, mezcal — which typically has a slightly higher alcohol content than tequila — should be sipped rather than taken as a one-gulp shot. She often tells first-timers to start with Espadin, the most exported type of mezcal.
"It's a nice base, because it's always got roasted agave flavors and toasted seeds. It's got that smokiness, depending on which company is making it," she said. "If you can enjoy craft beer or craft wine or craft cocktails, you can totally get on board with this."
For Harlan, opening Clavel a short walk away from W.C. Harlan was partially a practical decision. Parking is easy (even more so now with a 40-car lot for Clavel customers across the street), and it's nice to be able to go back and forth at a moment's notice. But Harlan also had no desire to leave the working-class neighborhood.
"We get people who are in their 70s that have lived in Remington their whole lives, who have been going to that bar way before it was W.C. Harlan, and still sit here and drink their Natty Bohs and chat with us," Harlan said. "With the business owners, we have a great relationship and I feel comfortable here."
The neighborhood has been mostly supportive of her efforts, she said, but like any longstanding community, change was initially met with resistance. Previous bars at the W.C. Harlan location were not thoughtful neighbors, and some worried Harlan — a newcomer — would be more of the same, according to Ryan Flanigan, president of the Greater Remington Improvement Association.
Harlan, though, set the neighborhood at ease, going door-to-door to introduce herself, and Flanigan's group supported the opening of Clavel. He described her as "accessible," and points to her serving familiar, off-menu beers to Remington lifers as evidence.
Last time he was in W.C. Harlan, "one of the neighborhood old-timers came in, and she pulled out some Miller Lite from behind the bar for him," Flanigan said. "She's willing to break her aesthetic a little bit to accommodate people, and I think that's a good neighbor."
Combine the arrivals of Spike Gjerde's butcher shop Parts & Labor and the Single Carrot Theatre with Harlan's establishments, and it's obvious why the term "Remington Renaissance" has gained momentum in recent years. While it is easy to point to Harlan as one of its faces, she established herself as a business owner in Remington more to prove a point about how to run a successful bar in the city, she said.
"I feel like we shocked a lot of people, and then gave people a lot of ideas about where you could put your businesses and to reverse the thinking of 'We have to be near everybody else so people will walk to us,'" she said. "It was like, oh wait — people will come to us no matter what because we have a commodity that they want, and they want to be there."
And there have been learning experiences. The most dangerous came in November 2013, when W.C. Harlan was robbed at gunpoint after a slow weeknight, which Harlan, who was there at the time, described as a "wake-up call." (Cameras were installed after, and the door is automatically locked at 12:30 a.m. now.)
But Harlan's confidence in the city has never wavered, she said. She has no grand aspirations to create the next great restaurant group here, but instead simply wants to continue to develop what she already has. If things continue as they are, that would be more than enough for Harlan.
"It would make me happy if [Clavel] just became a part of the landscape of Remington, and it became a place where people could come and know what they're getting, and know they're going to have delicious, simple food," she said.
Ultimately, no matter the direction she and her businesses go, Harlan's approach will be her own.
"There are no investors. There's no big company behind anything we've done. We own our buildings. We've renovated ourselves. It's a family thing, so we don't have people pressuring us to say, 'What's the next thing?'" she said. "We're doing what we want, and that's why I love what I do."