Caterer Charles Levine to Open Restaurant in Quarry Lake

What do Ronald Reagan and Mick Jagger have in common?

Both of them have enjoyed food prepared by longtime area caterer Charles Levine.

Next summer, if all goes as planned, you’ll be able to add your name to that list when Levine opens his first full-service restaurant at Quarry Lakes at Greenspring, a mixed-used development near Pikesville in Baltimore County.

The restaurant, which will be designed by Jay Jenkins of Jenkins Baer Associates, will be called Citron (which means lemon in French).

“It was easier naming my children,” says the father of four, laughing. “My wife and I went to Paris to find the name. It was on the second day of our trip and we had just left the Louvre and Versailles and were on Cloud 9. We went to this café and had the perfect meringue tart, and then the name just came to me.”

The veteran Owings Mills-based caterer’s clients have been asking him to open a restaurant for years. Once he found the Quarry Lakes location, he was happy to oblige.

With catering, says Levine, “when it’s over, people might not need you for a lifetime.” With Citron—focusing on contemporary American cuisine—he’s hoping to fill a more permanent niche in Baltimore County.

“The food scene in Baltimore has really grown over the years,” says Levine. “It seems like the Greenspring Valley area is underserved.”

The menu, he says, will be “very heavy season, though you’re not going to find every unusual kind of fiddlehead on the menu—more important is the style and the composition of the plates, the correct wine glass, and great service without being fussy.”

Additionally, says Levine, “We want to be a restaurant where someone who follows a particular diet can eat. I care that someone is vegan. I care that someone is vegetarian.”

Citron will feature both an upscale dinning room and a more casual area with a bar and lounge. Additionally, the 10,500 square-foot spot will offer patio seating in the warmer months and fireplaces on the interior in the cooler months.

To work at the helm of the kitchen, Levine recruited Dan Benedix, whose most recent stint was at Green Spring Valley Hunt Club. Benedix’s chef C.V. includes executive chef positions at the Four Seasons in Chicago and New York.

Construction begins at the end of July.