11-13-2022 Harford Magazine - Flipbook - Page 29
HARFORD COUNTY’S
BEST
RESTAURANTS
OF 2022
PROFILES BY MARY CAROLE MCCAULEY
AND AMANDA YEAGER
BEST CHEF
SUSAN MULDOON, VANDIVER INN
301 S. Union Ave., Havre de Grace, 410-939-5200, vandiverinn.com
Readers voted Susan Muldoon this year’s best chef
in Harford County, but you can’t find her cooking in a
restaurant.
Muldoon, a co-owner of the Vandiver Inn in Havre de
Grace, is instead known for catering dozens of weddings
and special events a year at the bed-and-breakfast. The
inn’s guests (and diners in the know) can also sample her
food at Vandiver’s daily breakfast service, or at one of its
special dinners, which include murder mystery nights
and wine or whiskey pairings.
Before she and her husband bought the inn two
decades ago, Muldoon had a career that spanned
pharmaceutical sales, hospital administration, and
nonprofit fundraising and development. But she always
had a catering business on the side.
“For me, it was always a creative outlet,” Muldoon
says of her love for cooking and catering. “It combines a
lot of my interests — science, creativity, marketing and
business — into one thing.”
In the kitchen, Muldoon is known for her range and
knack for playing with global flavors. Vandiver Inn’s
wedding menu has six pages of options, with dishes
like Thai red curry snapper and pistachio-crusted wild
boar. In Havre de Grace, Muldoon won both the town
chili cook-off (with a duck chili) and a mac-and-cheese
competition (with a rich lobster macaroni and cheese).
“I’m always doing something that’s not traditional,”
she says.
