A bar, a dining room and a curiosity shop, all beneath one skylight
“
It’s not a cuisine, it’s a concept.
Really, I just wanted to make beautiful spaces.
Minh Quang Vo, Proprietor & ChefThe Swan, in the dining room
MinhQuangVo
Proprietor, designer & chef
The Buttonwood is the work of one man. Minh Quang Vo is its owner, its designer and its chef. Before he kept a kitchen he was a doctoral candidate in the sciences at Johns Hopkins, and before that he lived in West Palm Beach, where the buttonwood grows.
Baltimore knows him from The Bun Shop, the late-night café he ran on Read Street and later in Towson. Between ventures he travelled, to Spain, through South America and to Uganda, and the bill of fare here is the record of those journeys: a pakora, a bánh mì, a bulgogi melt and a Ugandan rolex, all on one menu.
Ladders & shelves
527NCharles
Mount Vernon, Baltimore
The house opened at the close of December 2025 in Mount Vernon, down the street from the Walters. The walls are showroom white, the light comes from skylights, and the rooms are filled with statues, fountains, gilded mirrors, figurines and illuminated shelves of ceramics. Much of it is for sale; ask after anything that catches your eye.
Guests sit on church benches, at marble café tables and in velvet-cushioned porter chairs. The parquet floor was built by hand from used wooden pallets, laid by the squeegee boys Vo befriended at his Mount Vernon Bun Shop. A long marble bar with library ladders up to the top shelf runs across the back of the room.
The Buttonwood
OntheTree
Conocarpus erectus
The house is named for Vo’s favorite tree. The buttonwood, Conocarpus erectus, grows along the coast of South Florida, a hardy, salt-loving tree with small round seed heads like buttons.
He tried to bring one north from Florida and replant it here. It did not survive the journey, so it stands in the dining room under the skylight, painted gold, among the tables.
ComeandSee
Open for lunch and dinner from eleven until ten, every day but Tuesday. Call the house and a table will be kept for you.
