Anthony Scotto Jr. comes from a long line of Italians who immigrated to New York City more than 100 years ago. The restaurateur led prominent Big Apple eateries for about three decades before selling his stake and moving to Nashville to open two more.
Charleston came calling next.
Scotto, alongside his wife and children, is preparing to open Pelato in the former Butcher & Bee space this year. The family chose Charleston for their next restaurant after vacationing in the Lowcountry for years, likening the “NoMo” area in the northern portion of the peninsula to their Nashville restaurant’s home in the Germantown neighborhood.
When it debuts in 2025, Pelato will join the growing list of new and forthcoming Italian restaurants to debut in Charleston. The culinary focus of the dozens of destinations that opened across the state since 2022 provides a roadmap for the type of changes diners might notice when they go out to eat.
The Palmetto State is the fastest growing in the nation. How are population and demographic shifts impacting the food scene?
How Italian food flooded the U.S.
It all started with macaroni and cheese — at least according to one historian. The cheesy creation, then known as macaroni au gratin, was “sold as refined cuisine in American restaurants in most of the 19th century,” Krishnendu Ray, director of NYU’s Food Studies program and author of “The Ethnic Restaurateur,” told National Geographic magazine.
More than four million Italians, many fleeing from rural poverty in Southern Italy and Sicily, immigrated to the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They brought with them creations like macaroni and cheese but also pasta with red sauce and meatballs, pizza and more.
These and other noodle-based comforts and bowls with ample garlic and spice quickly grew a niche following. Italian food was referred to as “foreign.” Eating at an Italian restaurant was viewed as an affordable adventure.
That changed by the 1980s when Northern Italian food gained popularity. Now, tastes from all corners of the country can be found in cities and states across the U.S., including Charleston, where new and tenured eateries are delving into specific regional flavors.
If you build it, they will come
When Jacques Larson moved to Charleston in the mid-1990s, most fine dining restaurants leaned into Lowcountry cuisine. Italian establishments like Al di La and Pane e Vino started to change the narrative over the next decade, joining existing favorites like Fulton Five and Il Cortile del Re.
All of those restaurants have closed, but a new crop started to emerge when Wild Olive opened in 2009 and hired Larson as one of its chefs. That it debuted on Johns Island demonstrated the first step in an expansion of elevated Italian eateries across the region.
Stone carvings flank the street sign of Wild Olive, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025, on Johns Island.
File/Henry Taylor/Staff
Locale dictates what restaurants are and what they become, said Larson, now culinary director of Wild Olive and The Obstinate Daughter on Sullivan’s Island. Such has been the case at both restaurants, where the chef strives to marry “a few ingredients on a plate that sing together.” He and his team do so through a framework of supporting local growers, farmers and fishermen, keeping consistency and value front-of-mind as time goes by.
That ethos has spread to other Italian restaurants in the area like Indaco, which became one of the first few restaurants in Steve Palmer’s Indigo Road Hospitality Group when it opened in 2013. The concept has since been replicated in Greenville, Charlotte and Atlanta.
“Today, we see the breadth and diversity of Italian food in a variety of establishments in Charleston,” Palmer said. “At Indaco, we embody this range and use hyper-local ingredients, so our chefs are able to get really creative with their dishes while bringing familiar flavors to our diners.”
Restaurants inspired by Italy are also increasingly focusing on coastal Italian cuisine. The country features about 5,000 miles of coastline, so this type of cooking isn’t necessarily tied to a specific region. Rather, it relies on bright and light flavors, seafood and crudos — and less red sauce than diners might find at a typical Italian-American destination. Ken Vedrinski was doing all this before it was in vogue at Coda Del Pesce.
His Isle of Palms kitchen toes the line between indulgence and sensibility, I wrote in a recent restaurant review. Vedrinski does so through a range of daily-changing appetizers, seafood entrees and a selection of pasta, which comes in many shapes and sizes with ample sauce. The vibrant, fresh and local culinary program is paired with an all-Italian wine list and dining room that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean.
Vedrinkski, whose family hails from a small village in Italy, will explore a completely different side of Italian cuisine with Volpe’s, slated to open in downtown Charleston this year. Inspired by and named after his grandmother, the new restaurant will highlight the type of American-Italian cuisine that’s responsible for some of the country’s most popular dishes, such as chicken Parmesan.
Even with newcomers opening every month, Vedrinski believes Volpe’s will stand out.
“There’s always room for good restaurants,” he said.
Data supports the trend
Coda Del Pesce, Indaco, Wild Olive, The Obstinate Daughter, La Pizzeria and Mondo’s Italian Restaurant are among the local eateries that have served Charleston for a decade or longer. A wave of establishments — Renzo, Le Farfalle, Melfi’s and others — opened in the years before the pandemic, with many more coming since restaurants reopened in 2020.
Costa, Legami, Abbracci Italian Cuisine & Cocktails, Frannie and the Fox, Laura, La Rustica and Sorelle have debuted in the last five years. Volpe’s, Cane Pazzo, Allora and Pelato are all slated for this year. And that’s just in the Charleston area.
Flounder braciole topped with a basil leaf is plated atop a wooden board at Coda Del Pesce, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, in Isle of Palms.
File/Henry Taylor/Staff
The arrival of Italian eateries in the Lowcountry is supported by growth across the state.
Fifty Italian restaurants opened in South Carolina between January 2022 and September 2024, according to statistics provided to The Post and Courier by Datassential. Accounting for closures, the number of active Italian destinations jumped from 236 to 254 during that time.
The shift has coincided with an influx of tens of thousands of new residents to S.C. each year, making the Palmetto State the fastest-growing in the nation. Many, like the family in charge of Legami, are moving here from the Northeast.
Brothers Eldredge and Tyler Ropolo own the Upper King Street restaurant with their parents Gianni and Susie. The family — originally from Turin, Italy, and the owners of multiple Rhode Island eateries — chose Charleston in part because of its charm and food scene. The Holy City also reminds them of Europe and New England, the brothers said.
The now open Legami Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in downtown Charleston.
File/Andrew Whitaker/Staff
It’s not just that the list of Italian eateries in South Carolina is growing — what they’re offering is shifting from the bologneses, lasagnas and red sauce raviolis that dominated the early 2000s to more eclectic ensembles, emblematic of what diners actually find in Italy.
In the semi-open kitchen, Legami’s chefs are braising beef cheeks in Barolo wine and basting raw fish in charcoal olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar to make crudos. Entrees like beef Wellington and lobster risotto are served in a vibrant two-story dining room that fills with cheerful groups of guests clinking glasses and socializing over house-made pasta.
Many new Italian concepts, such as Legami, are showcasing lesser-known regional Italian dishes and ingredients, Jaclyn Marks, Senior Publications Manager & Trendologist of Datassential, told The Post and Courier. Noodles like paccheri — on the menu at Coda Del Pesce — are increasingly being utilized along with gluten-free and plant-based alternatives to pizza and pasta, Marks said.
“Enterprising chefs are also experimenting with Italian cuisine as a vehicle for cuisine mashups, leading to concepts like Mex-Italian and Japanese-Italian,” Marks said.
Charlestonians can taste a subtle version of this trend at Costa, the modern Italian eatery near Colonial Lake. Its coastal Italian inspiration highlights seafood but leaves room for improvisation, with enlightened culture-bridging dishes like hamachi crudo with yuzu and beef cheek tortelli. Chef Vinson Petrillo incorporates miso, fish sauce and other Japanese sensibilities into a menu filled with intrigue, displaying sharp technique and a penchant for playing with textures.
This type of ingenuity caters to younger generations who are increasingly seeking out global flavors, Marks said.