“What can we do to make it more memorable? Still to this day, we think we can become better,” he said.
The host stand at Legami Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in downtown Charleston.
File/Andrew Whitaker/Staff
Legami has, in my experience, steadied itself since those early hiccups. It’s done so by steering a little further from the “Epic Italian” slogan stamped on the postcard that comes with the check and closer to the type of food Charlestonians can truly get behind.
Consider reimagined Italian classics like the tagliolini ($44), draped in luxurious hunks of King crab. Twirl the thin, ribboned noodles to find tender mussels, freed from their shell to soak up the tomato-based pomodoro sauce, with an essence of the sea that is amplified by fresh-made shellfish stock.
Order this for yourself and steal a taste of your dining companion’s pappardelle al ragu ($31), the flat noodles concealing braised oxtail. The meat, which eats like a more robust short rib, can find a fitting match in Legami’s long list of well-selected California and Italian red wines.
Value options exist across the menu, one being the 2019 Pio Cesare ($120), a bold Barolo with soft tannins and mild fruit that’s modestly marked up from its retail price. If your sights are set on something lighter, Italian sparkling wines like the Franciacorta are an excellent choice.
King crab tagliolini and a glass of red wine in the outside dining area at Legami, Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Charleston.
Henry Taylor/Staff
Aspirational cooking
Legami’s website boasts delicious, shareable plates, though many are quite small.
You might get only a few bites, but that’s all you’ll need to appreciate how snappy peas and spiced tomato chutney jive with octopus ($21), its tender tentacles plump and crisp. Or how crispy wands of polenta ($14) befriend a sauce that tastes as if a dozen tomatoes were used in its making — the pure, condensed flavor a welcomed escape from the overpowering Gorgonzola fondue previously prepared for dipping.
Congiusta’s shrimp and caviar presentation ($28) is perhaps Legami’s most ambitious, with “pasta” fashioned out of nothing but prawns and laced in a creamy sauce imparted with lemon and vanilla. The latter is prominent, becoming the sweet to the caviar’s salty notes.