What We Miss Most: The Charleston Edition
If you’re the way we are here at Resy, you’ve been spending the past weeks thinking every day about your favorite restaurants. What do we miss most about them? What are we most looking forward to returning to, as they begin to fully reopen for dining? Yes, there’s plenty of takeout and delivery to enjoy, groceries and wine to buy, and lots of other ways to support the restaurants we love. But nothing beats the experience of being in a restaurant, enjoying the dishes you adore.
We’ve compiled a list of favorite things about dining in Charleston and the Lowcountry we’re hoping to get back so soon.
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- Getting an order of pickled shrimp or smoked oysters, and a cold glass of dry sherry, at the bar in late afternoon at The Ordinary.
- The pillow-light whipped feta and freshly baked pita at Butcher & Bee.
- Getting a full day’s worth of eating in with just the poutine and the Buffalo-inspired wings with gochujang honey at Herd Provisions.
- Finishing a meal, or just finishing a day on Sullivan’s Island, with gelato from the downstairs shop at Obstinate Daughter.
- The proper progression for a long lunch at Leon’s Oyster Shop: the big chicken platter if it’s been a while, or the fried oyster roll for what we’ll call a snack, plus a bottle of grower Champagne, and then an ice cream cone with sprinkles to finish.
- An order of griddle cakes for the table at brunch at Edmund’s Oast, and those difficult life choices — like deciding between beer and Burgundy. And if it’s happy hour, those $5 old fashioneds on the Bower.
- The pork plate at Rodney Scott’s BBQ, because respect the classics. (That smoked turkey, though … )
- The subtle Szechuan fire in nearly everything at Kwei Fei.
- Having a Stretch Armstrong pizza and a glass of Lambrusco on the back porch at Melfi’s.
- The Tavern Burger at Little Jack’s Tavern, with a rum old fashioned. And then maybe, just maybe, a second — for the table, of course.
- The expert way into dinner at FIG: Sitting at the back bar with a cocktail while you wait for seats to open at the bar.
- The fried fish at Bertha’s Kitchen.
- The full martini experience, to go with a seafood platter, at Delaney Oyster House. (But let’s agree said martini should be stirred.)
- The som tum with chicken at Xiao Bao Biscuit, just around dusk if you time it right.
- She-crab soup in the courtyard at 82 Queen.
- Last-set-of-the-night blues and Miller High Life at The Commodore.
- The extraordinary Southern hospitality — and the pimiento cheese — at Magnolias.
- Brisket at Bessinger’s, since you have respect mustard-style barbecue.
- Drinking a Jungle Bird and enjoying that rooftop sunset view at the Citrus Club.
- Gospel brunch at Halls Chophouse, including those sweet-potato pancakes.
- Monza‘s Caesar salad with crispy fried chicken, and that soft-boiled egg.
- A breakfast of shrimp and grits at Hannibal’s.
- Le Farfalle, because, sitting at the bar. Or the patio. Or the bar, then the patio.
- The bloody mary at The Grocery.
The full spread at Kwei Fei.
