Special Report
In a single visit to Gillie’s Seafood you could check off half your bucket list of classic Lowcountry dishes: purloo, she crab soup, shrimp and grits, red rice, okra soup. And let’s not forget what just might be the best fried shrimp in Charleston.
Berkeley’s dishes seem simple, but behind the scenes someone has put a lot of thought into each element and took the time to really dial it in. And that makes Berkeley a very welcome addition to the North Central neighborhood.
Coterie experiments with inserting upscale Indian flavors into a casual Lowcountry environment, and the playful, genre-bending aesthetic carries over from kitchen to bar.
At Palmira Barbecue in the Port of Call Food + Brew Hall, you can get whole hog on a sandwich with one side, on a platter with two sides or as part of a two-meat platter, also with two sides. The last is the clear way to go, for there’s plenty on the menu worth trying. In fact, everything on the menu is worth trying.
With its fresh, meticulous décor, the new Post House in Mount Pleasant seems perfectly crafted for our current Instagram age. While the food may not be quite enough to lure diners away from the big names on the peninsula, all the ingredients seem in place for the rebooted Post House to follow in its predecessor’s footsteps and become a long-running neighborhood favorite.
Chasing Sage is at its best with fresh produce front and center alongside a strong but not overwhelming dose of spicy heat, with fresh herbs adding a fragrant accent. The dishes that stand out are the ones without too many elements at play.
Bexley is the first foray into restaurant ownership by longtime Charleston chef Jeremy Holst. The arrival of the new restaurant is big news for diners in Summerville, and for those of us just passing through, too.
The daytime selection at Maya del Sol Kitchen features some of Owner Raul Sanchez's greatest hits from previous Charleston-area ventures. The evening dinners, though, are the real focus. They were inspired, in part, by Sanchez’s time at R. Kitchen and also by his desire to serve an array of dishes, including old family recipes, that don’t fit into the expected format for a Mexican restaurant.
Nick’s German Kitchen arrived quietly in October, just off the Isle of Palms connector in Mount Pleasant. It got there by a curious route, and its slim menu is anchored by a half-dozen variations of pan-fried schnitzel.
Laurel’s larger plates are the most impressive, and their bold flavors more than compensate for any lapses with the smaller dishes. That’s due in large part to the charcoal heat of the restaurant's Josper oven.
The fare at Brasserie la Banque shines brightest when it steps out of the familiar groove and delivers a few bold twists. The offering is billed as “authentic and familiar,” and while some dishes fit that description — steak frites, frisée aux lardons, French onion soup — there are plenty of unexpected bites, too.
I can’t shake the critic’s instinct that it’s silly to endorse a dish which might not be available tomorrow. I kind of miss taking chances, though. In other words: No promises. But here are my greatest hits from the first week of the dining ban.
Euro Foods is new to Old Towne Road, but not to West Ashley. It previously had a 13-year run on Ashley River Road, where it operated exclusively as a grocery store. Now the space bearing the Euro Foods name is split almost exactly in half, with a brightly lit retail section to the right and a counter-service café to the left.
Since launching the South Carolina Chef Ambassador program, the state has put approximately $360,000 into the culinary initiative. Less clear, at least according to data provided by sponsors S.C. Department of Agriculture and S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism, is what eaters here and elsewhere have gotten out of it.
Community Table is decidedly not fine dining: The servers are dressed in blue jeans, and James Taylor keeps cropping up on the background music mix.
Prior to 2020, each restaurant was theoretically eligible for 15 stars, since it was graded in three separate categories: Food, service and atmosphere. But no longer.
What really characterizes the food in this alluringly gold-walled lounge is not the ingredients which the Wangs puts into it, but the feeling you get out of it.
Outside of Texas and Louisiana, where crawfish are a backyard party fixture, American eaters are most likely to encounter these newly trendy critters at seafood boil houses, where they’re bagged and buttered along with lobster, shrimp and snow crab legs.
The Charleston area this year was blessed with a tremendous set of new restaurants, a pattern established back in March when Vandy Vanderwarker and Will Love opened Maison on upper King Street.
Estadio general manager Brandon Underwood is genuinely enthusiastic about sherry, which is one of the fun things to drink at Estadio. Other choices include a well-considered selection of vermouths; localized gin-and-tonics and precise cocktails, the best of which incorporate one of the afore-mentioned sherries.
By opening an upscale café celebrating a specific subset of expat Latino cuisine, Tomas and Lynda Prado have taken the Charleston restaurant scene in a different direction.
Pleasure seekers with deep pockets have become accustomed to flecked gold in their burgers and shaved truffles on their fries, but Circa 1886 chef Marc Collins may well have devised the authoritative Cinderella treatment for pimento cheese.
After a spectacular start in 2016, McCrady’s Tavern ran low on creative fuel, and this year skidded to a stop as a quasi-steakhouse, serving its final meal in July. Five weeks later, the company opened Delaney Oyster House in Marriott property Hotel Bella Grace.
Butcher & The Boar is an excellent name indeed, since it instructs patrons exactly what to order. Charcuterie and pork are the restaurant’s definite strong suits, and its lively patio is an ideal setting for enjoying them.
What’s the best macaroni-and-cheese in Charleston?
Once you start reducing cuisines to a few distinctive ingredients, it’s not too much of a stretch to draw equally pat conclusions about the people responsible for them.
Beef is not a strong suit at Herd, which has a tendency to wipe out the advantages of good raising with copious amounts of salt and strongly flavored sauces.
At the three-month-old KinFolk, brothers Joe and Kevin Nierstedt have built a menu around smoked meat, soft-serve ice cream and the sort of fried chicken that’s likely to play a leading role in wistful memories of summer.
Armando and Esmeralda Cobian's restaurant doesn’t conceal its unwavering allegiance to fresh vegetables and fruit, avocado included.
VIP Bistro late last year opened in that plain-looking Meeting Street complex hard by the Ravenel Bridge exit ramp, which for six years has been anchored by Local 616.
With the exception of James Islanders stuck in the previously barbecue-deficient area between Melvin’s Barbecue and Smoky Oak Taproom, locals probably won’t adjust their barbecue habits based on what’s served at Martin’s.
As Park Circle’s restaurant scene has flourished, proud residents have taken to declaring that there’s hardly any reason to go downtown these days. And with the arrival on the Eastside of Baker & Brewer, a fused-together version of North Charleston favorites EVO Pizza and Holy City Brewi…
At the height of Pappy Van Winkle mania, bourbon obsessives made an astounding discovery: The whiskey in bottles marked W.L. Weller 12 Year wasn’t all that different from the hard-to-get stuff.
A look at Maison bistro on King Street near Race Street.
Owned by the former chef de cuisine at The Ordinary, Maison is about the closest thing the Charleston food scene has to a workplace canteen.
The Korner Kitchen — and its food truck — is near the intersection of highways 162 and 165 in Hollywood.
The conch stew is a to-drive-for dish at Korner Kitchen in Hollywood. And, when the weather’s nice, the prime seating is on the latticed-in front patio.
Malagon is making exceptional food, but its owners don’t want you or me to know it.
Charleston and New Orleans aren’t exactly the same, but when visitors who’ve been to The Big Easy first come to The Holy City, they’re apt to feel like they’ve found their friend’s straight-laced cousin who doesn’t cuss or fling his beer bottles on the sidewalk. The two places are united by …
A look at Gabrielle Charleston, Hotel Bennett's signature restaurant on King Street.
Our food critic visited three Charleston restaurants when they first opened in the past year. After giving them all two stars in the first round, she revisits them to see what's improved and what stays the same.
A look at The Royal Tern restaurant — and some of its dishes — on Maybank Highway on Johns Island
Royal terns may fly, but Charleston area diners tend to drive, so when John and Ben Williams opened a restaurant named for the seabird, they wanted potential customers to know their cars wouldn’t be a problem.
The massive Folly Beach restaurant, which measures three dining rooms and 6,500 square feet in all, has good intentions that spawn nothing but disappointment.
There are some places where it doesn’t take a compass to know which way the culture goes. People in Miami have to go north to reach the South, and people in Seattle have to go east to find the Wild West.
Here's a look at MOMO kitchen + market, off College Park Road in Goose Creek.
Shrimp-and-grits hasn’t been a Lowcountry signature for very long, but the dish has more than made up for lost time with ubiquity.
Over the course of a year of restaurant reviewing, which translates to approximately 120 meals eaten for professional purposes, there are bound to be a few duds. Sometimes my mind will involuntarily flash back to cold and droopy squash blossoms or a mound of grated and burnt potatoes.