You might say the view of Baltimore’s dreamy skyline from the windows at Topside, Hotel Revival’s rooftop dining experience, is alone worth the trip. But for Amy Hessel, Topside’s newly appointed executive chef, that simply isn’t enough.

Hessel will be supervising the hotel’s dining operations from top to bottom, which also includes B-Side Cocktails & Karaoke and the cafe, Dashery.

Coming from two years at the Tilted Row in Bolton Hill, Hessel’s culinary journey has been fraught with change and a desire to be “breaking ceilings” as a chef. Her ultimate goal is to cultivate community around good food.

“I want to do more elevated dining and it [Tilted Row] was becoming more of a casual dining” environment, she said. “It’s great for the neighborhood, but it wasn’t what I was actually after. And so, the opportunity here came up and everything clicked into place.”

Hessel was born in Baltimore but moved with her parents to Houston as a child. There, she gathered the influences she’d eventually lean on for the flavors and styles she used at the Bolton Hill restaurant. Now she’ll develop them even more with new additions at the Mount Vernon establishment — with some favorite Charm City staples, of course.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you make the decision to be like, this is what I’m going to do here?

Everything has just kind of fallen organically for me into what needs to unfold in my life. I didn’t plan any routes really; this was the opportunity. Like, this is the one I’ll take, and again I wasn’t going to leave for just anywhere.

I wanted it to be something meaningful for me and a place that could really just grow and find out how high that ceiling is.

What do you think, if anything, you might bring from the Tilted Row, over here [to Topside] experience-wise?

I mean it’s [Topside] very, very different. … I spent two years using the flavors of the Mediterranean and the Middle East and so trying to not lean onto those flavors is going to be that [a challenge].

I’m still finding what my culinary voice is. Right now, my vision for here is to lean into the Chesapeake. I want to bring the flavors of Baltimore and the Chesapeake here in a different way that’s not necessarily going to be like a crab cake. But I want to bring those proteins, the produce that’s local to here … and bring in the flavors that I love, that I cook when I’m at home.

What’s some of the stuff you grew up eating?

Oh gosh, the Crawfish Festival was always like a big thing to happen every spring and that was a huge thing — to go to anything with crawfish boils, jambalaya, that’s what I grew up with. Just all of that influence with being right next door to Louisiana.

You know, Tex-Mex is great, but more authentic Mexican food is really just so much more exciting and just a vast array of flavors and textures compared to what we would get going to the local Tex-Mex spot. And then Houston has a huge Vietnamese population … the beauty of those clean flavors just really resonates with me as well.

Tell me about your connection to Baltimore and how you being here has influenced the way you cook.

I came up here in the summer to visit my grandparents. It wasn’t a summer coming up without having steamed crabs. … Since I’ve lived here since ‘98, it affects everything that we eat.

I’ve done a take on coddies — that is such a humble staple. I did something that I could take and elevate that, and I think that would be a really fun thing actually that I did temporarily at the Tilted Row that I might have to borrow for here, have that in some form.

But there’s something about Baltimore that just drags you in and I can’t imagine leaving to go back to Texas at this point. … There’s just this homecoming to it, you know, even though I live in Pennsylvania, I just live over the line. But there’s still something to be said: I was born in the city; I came back here for school. Even though I live away, I commute just so I can work in this city.

I could get a job in Lancaster, I could get a job in New York, in Harrisburg, but that doesn’t have the draw to me. I want to be here. I want to connect back to my heritage here.

What are some of the things from Baltimore that you think you’ll be able to homogenize?

We have such a wealth of seafood here that currently is not part of the menu [at Topside]. I want to bring in things where we can get local oysters, we can get rockfish, crab needs a spot on the menu — and like I said, there’s so many farms around here and I want to be able to utilize those farms. One, because the produce is just so much fresher. Also it helps support our community and puts money back in the community. My cafe [the now-closed New Freedom Rail Trail Cafe in Pennsylvania], I focused a lot on local and so it was very important to me to foster those relationships with my farmers and the small businesses.

Revival, we’re so community-based as a hotel that I think it should reflect in the restaurants as well.

What excites you about food?

Everything. I mean, I dream about food. I read cookbooks from front to back like they’re novels. I grew up with all PBS shows before Food Network was a thing. I would come home after school, and I would spend my summer vacation watching PBS and then Food Network.

Food is just part of my core, and so everything about food excites me, whether its eating something that unlocks a taste memory or finding something brand new that I’ve never tried before. There’s always something to find that can excite the senses and fall in love with.

What do you think about the food scene in Baltimore? Have you noticed any change?

Because I’m outside of the cities and the hours that I work, I don’t get to eat out and see this much, but I am noticing a surge of Black-owned restaurants which is amazing. … I have so much respect for the chefs that are coming in and doing those things. It’s awesome.

When we [my family] were visiting [as a kid], and the things that we really know, it would be like the stuff that’s on the Harbor. It was a very commercialized Phillips Seafood and that kind of stuff that just seemed like this is the epitome in Baltimore. And now it’s become more of a melting pot and you can find anything, and the neighborhood differences are so amazing, too, of what you get from one neighborhood to the next. There’s a different flavor in each one. It’s definitely not the Baltimore I grew up seeing.

Do you think the change of environment will have any difference on the audience?

I think it will. The Tilted Row definitely catered more with the neighborhood, and while I was there, we did get a lot of people from the county that come down for the weekend. We became a slot for people going to The Lyric, and you know, it’s a Meyerhoff free show. So that was really amazing that we could get that reach.

But it was definitely more of a neighborhood influence versus here [at Hotel Revival]. We have people traveling that are going from all over that are going to be here and come up to experience Topside. And I know there are locals that come in, but it’s definitely not like the neighborhood. So that’s going to change everything.

A lot of times people go to a restaurant like this and it’s for the view. The food’s fine, but it’s really the view that they’re paying for. And I want people to come here for the food. The view is the bonus. So that definitely is a huge difference.

Where do you see things going? Do you feel like, coming in, you’ll be able to have like that freedom as a chef?

Absolutely, and it’s not just Topside. It’s also working with B-Side, and seeing if we can add something there to their menu. At Dashery, we want to really start focusing on trying to grow that business as well with breakfast in mind, and offering something core for not just the guests to the hotel, but also that would be where we really want to reach out to the neighborhood.

There’s a huge amount of responsibility and opportunities for growth in so many different sectors, in so many different ways. I can’t even begin to see.

Being an executive chef, it’s obviously probably a lot of pressure. Could you describe that?

It’s a huge pressure because every single thing falls on you. If the guest doesn’t like the dish, ultimately, it comes down to me. If there’s a protein that wasn’t cooked properly, I should’ve caught it before it left the pass — before it ends up on the floor. So I have to take responsibility for all of the failures as well as all of the successes.

What are your plans going in to break those ceilings?

I’ve got to figure out where they are! I’m not sure yet what my limits are going to be, but I’m excited to explore and find out how far I can take it.