There is a famous folk
song by John Roberts,
entitled "Eat Bertha's
Mussels," that goes, "Eat
Bertha's Mussels, they're the best there is by far. You can eat them in the dining room, you can eat them in the bar. So when you're ashore in Baltimore and you fancy a bite to eat, just follow your nose to Bertha's, you'll be in for a rare old treat."
From the first time I heard those legendary lyrics more than a decade ago, I imagined Bertha's as an almost mythical destination where sailors, dressed from some vague, bygone era identified in my mind only as "olden days," convened to eat drink and be merry after months at sea. In reality, Bertha's has only been around since the 1970s, long after Fell's Point's sailor population had been replaced with what the Bertha's Web site gently describes as "a very creative crowd."
When it opened, Bertha's was called The Lone Star. The name Bertha's comes from the stained glass window that hangs over its bar. The window, purchased on a whim by the restaurant's owners at a junk shop, is dedicated to Bertha E. Bartholemoue, although who exactly Bertha is remains a mystery. Today, of course, Bertha's is known worldwide, for the song, bumper stickers and even T-shirts that proudly exclaim the famous motto that adorns the building's side -- "Eat Bertha's Mussels."
After over a month on campus, I finally got a chance to visit Bertha's when my parents, my roommate and I set out for Fell's Point with wide-eyed expectations. With our hopes so high, they could easily have been dashed, but, in almost every respect, Bertha's lived up to its reputation.
From the moment I walked in the side entrance of the restaurant and saw a flag above the front bar entrance, which depicts a buxom red-headed Bertha swinging her legs over the ocean while holding a pint aloft, I was enchanted with this restaurant. From the playlist on the old jukebox, hung for public perusal, which includes everything from Celtic songs to Elvis Presley, to the chandelier that is made of green beer bottles, to the grumpy old man who was acting as some sort of unofficial host and only agreed to seat us after discovering that we were from Boston, this restaurant certainly has its own lesunique charm. The makeshift host on the night of our visit had strong opinions about the cities of the Eastern seaboard. Boston he approved of; Baltimore, interestingly, he did not. But, as he told my mother at great length while we waited for our table, he had ended up here years ago chasing after "some crazy woman" and had never gotten out. What became of the woman we never discovered because a table opened for us, but it seemed fitting to encounter such an embittered romantic in this fabled restaurant.
We choose to eat our mussels in the dining room, but I did see a waitress carrying a steaming plate of mussels into the bar -- lest you doubt the song's accuracy. Our waitress had a less endearing personality than the host and was in too much of a rush to pay us much attention, but the food more than compensated for this brusqueness. We ordered a plate of mussels to share, with spinach, tarragon and garlic butter sauce, one of nine mussel platters offered. These mussels were truly the best mussels I've ever had in my New England clambake-filled life.
For my main course I ordered arroz con camarones, which consisted of rice with shrimp, mussels and Spanish sausage, which was good, though a bit of a bland let-down after the flavorful mussels that I had had as a starter. The dish was oddly the same as the paella entr5fe. The crab cakes, though delicious, were also inferior to the restaurant's famous mussels. The prices were steep, between $15 and $20 for entr5fes, although the mussels are a relative bargain, priced between $9 and $11, depending on the number of sauces you order.
After our meal, we took a little stroll through the bar, and despite feeling out of place with my middle-aged parents, the bar was delightful, just as I imagined it in my youth. It is a small smoky area with a wooden bar, and as early as 10 a.m. it was packed with a fascinating variety of patrons. Something to keep in mind is that Bertha's has live music, mostly blues, five nights a week.
In the end, Bertha's was everything I hoped for, a delightfully rustic atmosphere and the best mussels I have ever had. Stick to the mussels to make your hard-to-come-by cash go the farthest. Bertha's is also open for Sunday brunch and afternoon tea.
