Special Report
Meet slush
Meet steak-and-eggs
Meet canned wine
Meet blue ginger
Meet the Lowcountry’s lobster dishes
Meet orange caramel
Meet “paint-and-sip”
Meet ranch dressing
Meet pomegranates
Meet Girl Scout cookie drinks
Meet hakurei turnips
Meet turmeric
Meet chicharrones
Meet fennel pollen
Meet sweet potato tots
Meet wine blending
Meet coffee cocktails
Meet one-night-only meatballs
Meet nouveaux spring rolls
Meet Sicilian pizza
Meet chili con queso
Meet the food crawl
Meet smoked duck
Meet hoshigaki
Meet tres leches cake
Meet white truffles
Meet whipped cheese
Meet warm ice cream
Meet brown butter
Meet granola
Meet popcorn
Meet pineapple
Meet cacio e pepe
Meet chocolate babka
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.
Charleston's newest restaurants
Taking over the former Kickin' Chicken space on King Street that offered sports game viewing and bar food for 21 years is the only current brewery in the Historic District.
The Honey Hive is now open on King Street in the space previously occupied by HōM.
Maya, a regionally inspired Mexican eatery, is now open in downtown Charleston.
Your Mom's Donuts shop is now open on John's Island.
Spotlighting artisan food producers
More Food
Laura L. Middleton was among the Black writers in South Carolina’s branch of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project. She authored “Negro Restaurants in Charleston, South Carolina.”
Danny’s Philly Steak and Seafood all-day restaurant’s menu tilts toward unfussy workday meals.
The sign for The Taco Spot came down, and the sign for Taco Bartina went up on June 15, creating confusion among longtime customers and a new marketing dilemma for staff members.