Husk Restaurant

Chef Sean Brock has been called a "dirt chef," the "Grand Lama of Lardcore," "the best farmer who ever became a chef." He has been honored by the James Beard Foundation as Best Chef Southeast in 2010.

He is a humble, country chef of the South who is part Gregor Mendel, part Luther Burbank and all home-grown enthusiasm for the land, the people and the farmers who have birthed his vision of eating in the New South with Old South ingredients.

Husk Restaurant is his distillation of all that is Southern with a capital "S."

From biodiversity to animal husbandry, taxonomy to gastronomy, his interest in provenance is formed by the latitude and longitude of the American South. When dining at Husk, Brock and chef de cuisine Travis Grimes want you to know you are "where you eat."

Husk is the culinary narrative of the Neighborhood Dining Group under the leadership of David Howard. Husk's investors purchased the former Gibbes Art Gallery School and the adjacent property at 74 Queen that now houses the bar for the restaurant.

With an investor group committed to the restorations of 74 and 76 Queen, both buildings are an homage to the restaurant's mission: to create a sense of place for the foods you are eating with a mindfulness of the space and future generations.

To that end, Brock and his team have created a universe of Southern foodways that trek native and indigenous foods into the kitchen and ultimately, the table. He is a sure fit here in Charleston, learning the ancestral pedigree of heritage seeds and grains, animal breeds and the growing season. This is no small task for a kitchen to execute an ingredient-driven menu. But it does.

Early glitches took place around the fire: the wood-burning oven that required a bit of tempering, coaxing and taming to perform in the 21st-century eating world. And a 21st-century ordering system that experienced the gremlins known as "computer glitches." Those impediments to service appear to have been resolved.

Chef Sean Brock sends out dishes with server Melanie Kafader at Husk. Photo by Grace Beahm

This is a kitchen that cures its own hams; preserves, conserves, pickles; grinds, puts up and puts by so that you, the diner, can taste a region that covers the South as well as local foods from Thornhill Farm and Maria Baldwin and Company.

This is a kitchen that welcomes Clammer Dave, Celeste Albers, the farmers of James, Johns and Wadmalaw islands, the grains of Anson Mills and the scholarly directives of Glenn Roberts and David Shield. It is a restaurant that is biodynamic and biodiverse.

So what about this food? Well, for starters our server guided us through the daily menu by rote. In a labor of hospitality love she was able to recite the contents of the menu as we say in the kitchen, "from scratch." It takes you a while to digest the contents of this domesticated salute to the Southern culinary repertoire. But patience comes easy at a Southern table.

The season determined the Capers Inlet oysters ($14), braced with cold and brine, tempered by a balanced mignonette. And that points to another "Brockism": He is using the ingredients of the South but that does not mean they will not be dressed in culinary finery from other shores, like this French peppercorn sauce.

Fried chicken skins ($6) were served with a house-made hot sauce cooled by Wadmalaw honey. Interesting, but save your appetite for the chicken wings ($10) smoked and then double fried to crispness cloaking the tender wing flesh.

If the ham tasting is available ($14), do taste the Southern masterwork of family farms that know how to use salt, air and smoke to transform hog muscle into succulence. Served with a pungent mustard and pickled vegetables whose predominant flavors are allspice and clove, you will be pleased.

A Thackeray Farms arugula salad ($9) topped with roasted beets and Asher blue cheese needed a bit more acid in the ham vinaigrette dressing to cut through the fermented fat of the cheese and the salt of the beets and ham flavoring, but its portion was generous and stratified with layers of texture and lushness.

It was hard to pass up Bev's pork chop ($22). Bev Eggleston is known for his "fine swine" and this plate was no exception. It was served with Anson Mills farro, pork belly, Lacinato kale and a splash of red-eye gravy. A plate "likker."

A simple dish of catfish ($23) and clams on a bed of pureed potatoes with butter beans and field peas showcased how the simple is sublime. Ingredients that speak of themselves with minimal invasion by the kitchen. Just a fine plate of fish.

Husk is truly a house of "brown water" and Bourbon fans will salivate over its small-batch collection, aged Pappy Van Winkle selections, and curated cocktails ($10) with names like Corpse Reviver and Monkey Gland.

Wines are grouped according to their most basic soil type. Look for terms such as alluvial, limestone, clay, slate, granite. It will become a lexicon that informs your taste preferences.

Desserts are the "amuse" at Husk, whether they are deconstructed in Wreck canning jars, playful riffs on Moon Pies, or inverted black bottom confections. Nathan Richard will leave you with a sweet and happy memory of your last course.

The menu at Husk is a gestalt experience. The past is made present, boding well for the future when the names of farmers roll off our tongues, not the initials of conglomerates who have given us "fast" but not really "food."

Southern Living Magazine has already selected Husk as the "Best New Restaurant."

Brock's goals are to "change the perception of the South and its cooking." It is clear that he is on the trajectory to accomplish this but of more importance is the farm and farmer brands that he is building on the backs of regional and environmental values.

He is showing us, one ingredient at a time, that matters of choice can become matters of course and that is not just a Southern thing.