Charleston Grill

Leave It To Weaver

In January 2009, executive sous chef Michelle Weaver was promoted to top toque at the AAA 4 Diamond and Mobile 4-Star Charleston Grill restaurant in Charleston Place hotel. Her mentor, colleague and executive chef Bob Waggoner left to explore new opportunities in food and media. Weaver, who has called herself a 'restaurant girl, heart and soul,' plays the culinary piano with the hands of a virtuoso.

In fact, when the restaurant closed in 2007 for renovation and conceptual changes, it was Weaver's idea to divide the menu into four component parts: Pure, Lush, Cosmopolitan and Southern. Using these culinary compass points, she helped orchestrate a menu that would demonstrate the strength of ingredients, a respect for classic French disciplines, an embrace of the global pantry and a contemporary spin on the terroir of the Lowcountry. She has mastered this four-part harmony of ingredients, suppliers, preparation and presentation.

The look of Charleston Grill is one of casual elegance. The space is handsome.

Its dark paneling anchors a light and airy dining room, softened by diaphanous panels of fabric and punctuated by comfortable upholstered chairs that shimmer in the waning light of day. The new grill has a refined sense of place. It is as adaptable as a 'little black dress.'

You can dress up your experience with the finest of Black River caviar served with the traditional buckwheat blini ($135) and a glass of Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs ($40), followed by a 22-ounce Prime rib-eye steak ($48) with matsutake mushrooms and salsa verde.

Or keep it simple with the crab cake ($17), the finest you will taste in this town with sweet, fresh 'tenderloins' of lump backfin crab tethered with minimal binders and served with creek shrimp and a lime-infused vinaigrette with tomato and dill. Follow that with a Bibb lettuce salad ($12) speaking in the local vernacular with corn beignets, Vidalia onions and a buttermilk-based dressing. You will get superior satisfaction and minimum expense.

Weaver values simplicity, and you can taste this in her sweet onion-mushroom soup ($12). A patient reduction of the very essence of onions and mushrooms, a garnish of tender vegetables, chopped to uniform brunoise, all poured from a Japanese tetsubin teapot over a pillow of a translucent dough harboring a cheese-filled ravioli.

She respects tradition that you can taste in a tenderloin of Prime beef ($48) with a baked potato and Bourguignon sauce. She embraces our appetites for the exotic with her use of fennel dust, guanciale, shiso and ponzu. She packs up our tastebuds and takes them on a soul train to India with shebu bhaji and tamatar shorba, with stops in Thailand for a beef salad with roasted and puffed rice grains ($11), Italy with lobster carbonara ($10) or polenta with white truffle fondue ($11).

In her roots, so firmly planted by her mother, who loves to garden and grow vegetables, is the confident hand that cooks Brussels sprouts, farro, broccoli rabe and roasted winter vegetables.

Dining at the grill is a culinary adventure. Our first stop was a crudo of tuna and black salt set on a puddle of beet essence contrasted with micro greens. An appetizer of Iberian ham ($17), from an ancient breed of pig called the pata negra and only recently made available in this country, is served with Manchego cheese ribbons and a bracing deconstructed tapenade that demonstrates the grill's attention to the quality of every ingredients, including the capers and olives that flavor this condiment with a twist.

A lamb shank ($35) was slowly braised, and every morsel of flesh was teased from the bone. It was served with a feta-flavored polenta and finished with an orange gremolata. Cracked corn never tasted so good.

Although the seared flounder with crab succotash ($32) is found in the Southern section of the menu, it has all the hallmarks of Pure. Fresh fish is softly crusted, sauteed until the nutty notes of flounder are developed, then layered on a bed of lump crab and a succotash of field peas, haricot verts, corn nibs and a tomato-dill vinaigrette. The dish speaks with culinary artistry, not pretense.

Do save room for dessert. The work of pastry chef Emily Cookson is exceptional. The same cobbled influences that shape the menu are expressed in her sweet finishes.

Get the South in your mouth with a fried banana cream pie ($10) with cherry cola syrup and marshmallow ice cream. Taste the tropics with a coconut bread pudding ($10) garnished with quenelles of tapioca pudding, coconut ice cream, crisp 'pennies' of caramelized pineapple and a sugared leaf of cilantro that really makes the dish.

Eat breakfast for dessert with a miniature cinnamon roll ($10) that is nestled on a salted butterscotch sauce, crusted with roasted pecans and snapped to attention with an apple granite. All the desserts are listed with a specific dessert wine pairing. Do try.

Also enlist the knowledge of sommelier Rick Rubel. The wine list can be imposing, but the informed staff will assure you of a good match with the flavor notes of Weaver's menu.

And when you are dining at the grill, you are in the hands of general manager Mickey Bakst. He is a gentleman and an evangelist for the ecumenical experience of breaking bread and drinking wine.

He is the heart of Charleston hospitality. Like the melody and harmony of the talented musicians who add to your experience, Mickey (everyone calls him Mickey) orchestrates with perfect pitch.

Charleston Grill

Cuisine: Eclectic

Category: Neighborhood Favorite and Night Out

Phone: 577-4522

Location: 224 King St. (Charleston Place hotel)

Food: ¤¤¤¤¤

Atmosphere: ¤¤¤¤¤

Service: ¤¤¤¤ 1/2

Price: $$-$$$$

Costs: Appetizers $10-$135, entrees $25-$48, sides $8-$10, tasting menu $80, desserts $9-$10, cheese course $5-$15, bar menu $10-$135.

Vegetarian Options: Yes.

Bar: Full-service bar, specialty cocktail menu, fortified wine flights and dessert wine flights.

Hours: Bar opens at 5 p.m. Dinner daily 6-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 6-10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Decibel Level: Moderate to animated.

Parking: Complimentary valet parking.

Wheelchair Access: Yes.

Other: Private dining room, live jazz daily and late-night jazz 10 p.m. until midnight Thursday-Saturday from the Quentin Baxter Ensemble and Bob Williams Duo. Bar menu. Dinner at Dusk (requires designated reservation) before 6 p.m. and after 9 p.m., three courses for $39. Gourmet at Home, culinary services provided by the staff of Charleston Grill; for details, call 810-5960. Whole table order required for tasting menu.

WEB SITE: www.charlestongrill.com.