Dos Santos prepares for first underground LIME dinner
Lime is a fruit. To lime is apparently a verb. And according to chef Renata Dos Santos, lime is an experience, a way of life.
That's why the Trinidad-born Dos Santos decided to name her new culinary venture LIME Charleston, the second underground dinner club in the Lowcountry. In Trinidad, the word first was used to describe British soldiers but soon came to mean a laid-back lifestyle that emphasized unhurried good times with friends. The cultural idea is popular in her home country, and she thought it fit her idea of an underground supper club.
"I want to do a treasure hunt sort of thing," she explains. "It will be an experience, an evening, with transportation to the location, and five to nine courses when you get there."
Although she's been familiar with supper clubs for years, she first got the idea for one from a Travel Channel special on nontraditional restaurants in China, where space in cities can be very limited. The show, which featured home restaurants, resonated with Dos Santos, and soon after graduating from the Culinary Institute of Charleston, she set upon making her dream a reality.
But this dream has a twist. She is not just starting a nontraditional restaurant, she is hoping to run LIME (Local. Impromptu. Moveable. Evening.) as a nonprofit. There will be some operating expenses, yes, but most of the proceeds will go to each chef's charity of choice. So not only will this moveable feast have rotating chefs, there will be rotating charities as well. And Dos Santos is stressing local ingredients, local entertainment and, depending on the event, even local vendors.
For the first "limin'," Dos Santos is the chef, and she's developed a menu that includes coconut ceviche, lamb and goat cheese ravioli and dark chocolate black pepper ice cream.
"I can reveal everything but the location," she says with a smile. And, of course, that aspect could be Lowcountry perfected -- from a farmhouse table in a home's back garden, aboard a boat in the harbor or even on the second floor of an Upper King Street storefront. The location is part of the experience, which becomes more than the sum of its parts of cuisine, location and guests.
No matter the chef, the locale or the charity, LIME Charleston will have Dos Santos' passion for sharing food and building community as the central focus.
"Her passion for food is enormous, and her talent is equally so," says Holly Herrick, cookbook author and food critic.
Herrick has worked with Dos Santos on Slow Food Charleston events and said she loves the chef's energy and focus. "Her beacon is simplicity and her commitment to slow food."
For Dos Santos, it is simple. There is a variety of food that comes from this area, but she doesn't see that variety on a lot of tables. She sees people often bored with food while being afraid to try new things, and she wants to change that.
"LIME is a lot about education, too. A lot of people are afraid of ingredients, but there are options out there for true magnificence," she says.
