Quaint and cozy, Old Ellicott City’s winding roads and colorful buildings offer a unique backdrop for shoppers and diners. The historic district is home to a plethora of restaurants that run the gamut from humble cafés to places offering sky-high desserts. But one particular favorite is Manor Hill Tavern, which first opened in 2017 and quickly became a staple of the area with its brick oven pizzas, inventive ingredient combinations and beer from the family-owned Manor Hill Brewing company.
The restaurant sits on one of the district’s slanted hills, in a 19th-century wooden building enveloped by trees. It used to be a stable, and while the building has been renovated over the years, some of its original architecture still remains. Just across the road is the tavern’s outdoor beer garden, where guests can enjoy lagers brewed by the establishment’s original owners, the Marriner family. A mural of their family farm adorns one of the restaurant’s walls.
“They own Manor Hill Brewing, and they wanted a second location to showcase some of the beer they were making on their farm,” explains Heather Gotcher, Manor Hill Tavern’s current owner. “We work in conjunction with them a lot.”
Gotcher served as the restaurant’s chief operating officer for five years, but when the Marriners decided to sell the business, she purchased it from them, along with their other restaurant, Victoria Gastro Pub in Columbia.
“It was the first restaurant job I ever had, and the only restaurant I’ve ever worked at,” she adds.
While the alcohol brewed at Manor Hill Brewing is a major component of the tavern, its primary offerings are shareable appetizers and entrees that use healthy, locally-sourced ingredients. Most notable are its pizzas, which are baked in a brick oven that sits in the middle of the restaurant.
But these pizzas are far from typical pepperoni or Hawaiian pizzas — from the fig-and-prosciutto-based Figgy Piggy to the barbecue flavors of the Holy Smoke, there are some topping combinations guests will be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.
“We try to create multiple levels of experience in one spot so people don’t get bored. They can come down here and get pizza and hang out with their buddies, they can go up to the bar to have wings and beer or they can sit down here and order crab cakes,” says Jay Rohlfing, Manor Hill Tavern’s culinary director.
Rohlfing has only been working at the tavern for about a year, but says that he was attracted to Old Ellicott City’s unique culinary community and how the tavern is operated.
“As I got older, I realized that the people you surround yourself with will set your trajectory,” he recalls. “I wanted to be around people who share my values of not only working really hard, but growing and caring for each other. When I met [Gotcher] and her husband and saw the culture, how they had built these restaurants, I wanted to be a part of it.”
Pizza may be what Manor Hill Tavern is most well-known for, but both Gotcher and Rohlfing add that the restaurant’s burgers are its most popular menu item. The restaurant often changes its menu to fit the ingredients that are in season: during the summer, it adds crab cakes.
Manor Hill Tavern tries to incorporate as many seasonal, locally-sourced ingredients as possible into its dishes, something that Rohlfing is particularly passionate about.
“I long for what’s about to come in this season, like strawberries. You can buy strawberries all year round, but strawberries in season are different,” he notes. “It’s about finding the ingredients when they’re at their peak, loving them for that little moment and then moving on to the next one.”
Many of the tavern’s ingredients, such as fruits, vegetables and herbs, come from the Marriner family farm.
In addition to beer, the tavern also takes a more hands-off approach to cocktails. Gotcher describes the process as largely “bartender-driven,” with the restaurant’s craft cocktail menu being informed by whatever the bartenders want to make. The spicy “Rita’s on Fire” margarita and the “Your Majesty’s Martini” are particularly well-liked.
But to Gotcher, one of the most meaningful parts of running Manor Hill Tavern isn’t just satisfying customers and creating a delicious menu — it’s being part of Old Ellicott City’s vibrant restaurant community, with a surprising amount of collaboration between different business owners.
“You can get a drink here, and then dinner at Phoenix Upper Main, and an after-dinner drink at Judge’s Bench … not to mention all of the great dessert spots in town. It’s a great way to have the whole experience instead of only going to one place,” Gotcher says. “Old Ellicott City’s the best. It’s the best community, and we do a ton of events to bring people into town and learn more about the things we offer.”
