06-27-2024 Howard - Flipbook - Page 30
Best restaurants
Chef Chad Wells, executive chef at Walker’s Tap and Table, has been named best chef in Howard County. Here, he holds one of his creations: the Route 97 BLT with
bacon, fried green tomatoes, habanero honey, arugula, and pimiento cheese on sourdough bread. PHOTO BY BARBARA HADDOCK TAYLOR
Chef
CHAD WELLS,
WALKER’S TAP & TABLE
2465 Route 97, Glenwood,
410-801-9400, eatatwalkers.com
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As a child, Chad Wells enjoyed hanging
around food.
“I was the one who liked sitting outside
with my grandmom, on her farm in Jessup,
picking the tops off of green beans,” he
said. The kitchen was his chemistry lab,
where he mixed and matched fixins’ to no
end.
“Sometimes it worked and sometimes it
was disgusting — but that’s how you learn
to put ingredients together that makes
sense,” said Wells, 43. As executive chef
at Walker’s Tap & Table, in Glenwood, he
keeps pushing the envelope, putting an
| Summer 2024 | howardmagazine.com
offbeat spin on otherwise normal fare.
“We take comfort foods and turn them
on their heads by thinking a little outside
the box,” he said. Like the fried deviled
eggs and Frito pie burgers; sloppy joe egg
rolls and Cajun crab pizza; and smoked
tomato soup with grilled cheese croutons.
“I want people to be excited about what
they are going to eat — and we [strive]
to exceed their expectations,” said Wells,
former chef at Alewife, in Baltimore, who
helped open Walker’s five years ago. “Plus,
we’re relentless about making everything
from scratch from fresh, local ingredients.”
