In 2005, when Katie Luber, left, and Sara Engram, right, were launching their Maryland-based spice business, they had a conversation with a friend about their concept.

"He said to us, 'Hmm . . . spices, and you're these girls. . . . You're the Spice Girls! That's so hot!'" recalls Luber, laughing at the memory.

Picking the best crab cakes in Baltimore is a lot like picking your favorite coffee place. The choices are overwhelming—and loyalties are fierce. So it seemed downright brazen to even attempt to name our top patties. But that's exactly what we did.

We toured white-tablecloth restaurants, bare-table taverns, and old-time watering holes in our search, and weren't disappointed. We think you'll find our list is filled with respected standbys and surprising discoveries.

While some of the area's top chefs are laboring over ambitious presentations like saffron-poached sea scallops and red-wine-braised veal cheeks, they often experience pangs for more familiar foods from their youth-basic dishes that mom cooked. And every now and then, they're happy to put aside the duck confit and black truffles and go home to mac and cheese or pot roast-and reconnect with mom all over again.

Michel Tersiguel, Tersiguel's

To stroll through any of Baltimore's municipal markets is to experience a sharp reminder of the passage of time. These places, as much a part of our city's eccentric history and sustenance as Arabbers—that waning breed of horse-drawn produce-hawkers—have changed considerably since they were built in the 18th and 19th centuries.In those days, the busy marketplaces served as microcosms of the communities around them. They were a Babel of German and kosher butchers, Polish sausage makers, Italian bakers, and fishmongers, who harvested their catch from the Chesapeake Bay.

Talk about a daunting task—first of all, deciding which restaurants would make our annual list, then, for the first time, evaluating them in order of greatness. Can we just say there were several hours of lost sleep as we mentally arranged and rearranged the list in the middle of dark, cold nights? But we're happy (and relieved) to report that, after conferring with our panel of reviewers, there is a consensus. We think you'll agree with our number-one pick. That doesn't mean the other 49 are necessarily lesser in food ambition. They're tops, too. They just offer different charms.

With the growing excitement around cocktails—both classic and cutting-edge—we interviewed some of the area's most popular and experienced bartenders to find out what their customers are ordering and what trends they're seeing through the glass. Here's what they had to say.

Lance Baldwin, 39 
Bartender, An Poitin Stil, Timonium

We like to believe that certain foods increase our libido—hence, all those boxes of chocolate tempting us on February 14. But what if you could better the romantic odds with two aphrodisiac foods—cocoa (boosting feel-good brain chemicals) and chili peppers (it's the fiery molecule capsaicin). The spicy-sweet combo is not as strange as it sounds. Spice giant McCormick came out with a gourmet cocoa-chili-pepper blend last year and called it one of its top flavor pairings, suggesting using it in chili as well as chocolate cake.