Nevin Martell
| Studio Gannett
Charleston usually steals South Carolina’s culinary spotlight with its long-revered Southern-centric restaurant scene showcasing iconic Lowcountry dishes, such as shrimp and grits, she-crab soup and Hoppin’ John. Yet, dedicated foodies are now heading instead to Greenville, a charming city of just more than 70,000 residents, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The glittering gastro gem shines brightly with resourceful chefs embracing a diverse array of culinary traditions, often eschewing allegiance to strictly Southern cooking.
“For a small town, you really can go get anything that you want to eat,” says Morgan Meece Allen executive director of the Euporia festival, an epic, multiday food, wine and music event that has been celebrating Greenville’s burgeoning restaurant scene and local gastronomic talent for two decades.
Case in point is the city’s scenic, eminently walkable downtown populated by a worldly array of more than 200 restaurants — chic Italian osteria Gianna, Papi’s Tacos, buzzy dim sum hot spot Sum Bar, O-Ku Sushi and French-inspired Scoundrel, a James Beard Award semifinalist for a Best New Restaurant.
Restaurants cater to an equally global audience. Though Greenville was once known as the “Textile Capital of the World,” that industry faded away in the 1970s. Now Michelin and BMW are two major regional employers, attracting employees and clientele from across the planet. Later this year, the Michelin Guide is set to bestow its first awards on the region, helping cement Greenville’s status as one of the most exciting up-and-coming food destinations in America.
No matter the cuisine being highlighted in what locals sometimes call “Green Vegas,” diners savor a cornucopia of regionally raised produce and proteins. “(James Beard Award-winning chef) Sean Brock once told me that we have the best locally sourced vegetables and ingredients he’s ever seen,” Allen says.
Fork and Plough in the Overbrook Historic District, just east of downtown, embraces a farm-to-table ethos on a foundational level. A partnership between chef Shawn Kelly and Roddy Pick, owner of Kingbird Pastures, which raises much of the produce featured at the restaurant, the restaurant’s menu changes daily. “We’re able to bob and weave with what’s available,” says Kelly.
Depending on the day, plates may range from peach-glazed whole roasted flounder and guinea fowl ragu ladled over asiago gnocchi to a Nashville Hot-style fried catfish sandwich and Basque cheesecake lavished with local strawberries. Guests can continue their allegiance to seasonal cooking at home thanks to the onsite market offering locally sourced fruits and vegetables, cheeses and eggs, as well as grab and go meals, including beloved chicken pot pies and fried chicken dinners with all the fixin’s.
For visitors yearning to explore the region’s bounty further, it’s worth driving 20 minutes out of the city’s hub to Topsoil Kitchen + Market in the stylish suburb of Traveler Rest. The high-ceilinged restaurant with a peekaboo kitchen and walls dotted with local artists draws on its own small farm for herbs, peppers, squashes and tomatoes, as well as a panoply of other producers and purveyors who are noted on the menu in bold print. Chef Adam Cooke specializes in scratch cooking taking inspiration from around the world. Think yellowtail Hamachi crudo in corn milk leche de tigre, ricotta cavatelli with braised beef and lion’s mane mushrooms and za’atar spice butternut squash.
To learn more about some of the region’s wild food offerings, trip out to Mushroom Mountain in nearby Easley. Featuring an outdoor living shroom museum, the colorful education-research-cultivation center offers tours and classes galore for the fungi curious — from how to grow mushrooms at home to how to identify them out in nature. By the end of a visit, guests have a new appreciation for the power and potential of mushrooms, as well as a deeper understanding of Greenville’s magnificently multidimensional food scene.
Dining and Cooking