I had never before in all my travels (all 7 continents!) seen an 100% organic room service breakfast menu – much less complimentary! It was an incredible sight….
This was a great start for my stay in Baltimore, MD. This hotel is conveniently located near the largest natural products show on the east coast – Natural Products Expo East – which I attended earlier this fall. The Inn is completely eco-friendly and has a total of 12 suites – my suite was ridiculously large (ridiculous in a good way – I had to explain this use of the word to my mother the other day). I had my own living room, desk, kitchenette (sooooo important for my daily habits!), king size bed and a huge bathroom with a jet tub – the kind of jets that are pipeless and don’t harbor germs – and all the water was filtered – yes filtered! Can you say home away from home?
Incredible thought was given to the environment when creating the Inn. There are Limestone walls – no VOCs, Geothermal heating/cooling which saves 70% on energy expenditures, energy efficient elevators that don’t use toxic oils and eco-friendly cleaning supplies. The mattresses, sheets and towels are all made with organic materials and cotton, even the bath robes. And the carpet? Dyed with vegetable dye – no petroleum based red #40 here!
Between all of this, the Endangered Species Organic Mint Chocolate on my pillow and the clean eco-friendly beauty products in the shower – I seriously thought I was transported into a world only I could imagine – but this was all real. I didn’t pinch myself – just in case it wasn’t because I didn’t want to wake up…but if I did want to literally wake up – there was a nice selection of complimentary organic coffee and tea waiting for me just in case.
Onsite, the Inn has two amazing organic food restaurants….
I had a wonderful time at the “Olive Room” restaurant with Darren Mahaffy V.P. of Marketing from Nature’s Path, Max from Livingmaxwell, Hemi Weingarten, CEO of Fooducate, and Yve Golan, the lawyer who is on the Naked Juice and Kashi class action lawsuits (go her – right?!).
The discussion that night was very lively! That’s all of us doing a green juice cheers below… we didn’t just drink juice however, we also ordered a lot of food, including the mezze plate for the table, which had the best eggplant baba ghanoush I’ve ever had. For my meal – I ordered the avocado greek salad and baked (love this!) sweet potato fries with organic ketchup…. Everything was so fresh and very tasty – I wanted to eat off of everyone else’s plates and try it all.
It’s hard to decide my favorite part about the Inn, but ordering green juice whenever I wanted it – including having it ordered through room service at breakfast – comes close to the top of the list. The green juice at the Inn is made with a Norwalk machine – a high-end cold-press juicer that is recommended for cancer patients because it gets the most nutrients available out of fruits and vegetables without degradation or heat. Having Dominic, the owner of the hotel make this fresh for me every morning – was an over the top hospitable gesture. Dominic shared with me that he loves when people ask him to make juice, because he gets to make some for himself too. Awe.
Everyday before the show, I had the Agora gourmet market downstairs make my lunch to go so I could eat it later. The hummus wrap with a sprouted grain tortilla and kale salad were so good on the first day, I ordered the exact same thing for the second day at the show and for the airplane ride home. I can’t wait to try everything else on their cafe menu when I go back next year. Yep – I’ve already reserved my room – there’s no other place in Baltimore that I would ever want to stay…
Thank you to everyone at The Inn At The Black Olive for making Baltimore an enchanting home away from home and for your commitment to organic living and the environment.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever find a more organic hotel to stay in…until then.
