With family in town for the long Labor Day weekend, I revisited a handful of the Charleston restaurants I’ve unintentionally neglected over the past year.
One meal took place at Lowland, where the 2025 departure of Jason Stanhope left the kitchen in the very capable hands of chef Matthew Dion, who previously cooked at FIG and The Ordinary. I’ll put his pork schnitzel, covered in juicy sliced tomatoes and drizzled with a cucumber-dill yogurt sauce, up against many of the entrees I sampled this summer.
Tip Jar is a column from The Post and Courier where Food & Dining Editor Parker Milner answers readers’ questions about Charleston’s restaurants and dining scene.
Matt Hill/Special to The Post and Courier
Another day brought me to a slim two-story French restaurant down a side alley just off Coming Street.
Inside the calm, cozy dining room at Chez Nous, we shared braised-then-chilled octopus tucked inside a garden of lemony lettuce, leeks and capers; a refreshing salad of sweet watermelon cubes, heirloom cherry tomatoes, pine nuts, house-made croutons and nutty bits of Parmesan cheese; and trout bathed in brown butter.
Chez Nous, where the invigorating fare is reminiscent of the cuisine I’ve had in Paris, is, in my opinion, one of several essential stops for food enthusiasts who recently moved to Charleston. That brings me to our first Tip Jar question of the week.
Submit your restaurant, dining and food questions, along with your first name and the neighborhood where you live, to tipjar@postandcourier.com.
If you had to pick three Charleston restaurants to introduce someone to the city’s food scene (one iconic, one hidden gem and one newer spot), what would they be and why?
— Scott, James Island
I pondered this question for hours, Scott. And while I’d love to cop out and list several options, I’m going to answer the inquiry as presented and share just one restaurant in each category.
Bowens Island Restaurant, located five minutes from Folly Beach, endures as an iconic establishment defined by the local seafood the Lowcountry is known for serving. The 80-year-old James Beard Foundation American Classic is where many, including me, tasted their first clusters of steamed oysters, which are locally harvested from September through the first half of May.
From Bowens’ wooden patio, guests can be seen shucking the sweet, briny bivalves while overlooking King Flats Creek and the surrounding marsh. Those in search of other Southern specialties can sample the restaurant’s expertly fried fish, peel-and-eat shrimp and golden hush puppies.
When it comes to a hidden gem, I’m going to direct you to Bintü Atelier, located in the East Side neighborhood of downtown Charleston. Though it earned a place on Bon Appétit’s nationwide list of 20 top new restaurants in 2024, many diners I talk to still haven’t been to chef and owner Bintou N’Daw Young’s West African restaurant.
Charleston cuisine is rooted in West African foodways brought to America by enslaved people, making a visit to the Senegal native’s restaurant an essential introduction to the Lowcountry’s food scene. When I go, I like to pick up a bottle of crisp white wine at Graft (Bintü Atelier is BYOB with a remarkably modest $5 corkage fee) to pair with the spicy selections, including soft shell crab rice and suya, a Nigerian snack of beef skewers dusted in peanut powder that could be eaten by the spoonful.
Several new restaurants, including Bintü Atelier, have opened in Charleston over the past two years. Few have been more widely celebrated — and rightfully so — than James Beard Award finalist Merci, where the menu changes daily and relies on seasonal South Carolina ingredients.
One recent example of chef Michael Zentner’s finesse on this front was through a plate of snowy grouper set over Carolina Gold rice middlins. A frothy white wine sauce wrapped around the fish, but it was the citrusy, bright essence of local shishito peppers that carried through from the state’s most famous grains to the flakes of regionally caught fish.
It tasted like South Carolina on a plate.
If you could take a Charleston newcomer to three restaurants – one iconic, one hidden gem, one new spot, where would you go? Our Food & Dining Editor shares his picks.
Where should I take my Puerto Rican friend to eat in Charleston?
— Annie, Johns Island
After visiting Puerto Rico for the first time four years ago, I came home so enamored with the food that I scoured the Charleston area for a restaurant that reminded me of the wonderful meats, fish and baked goods we tried. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a Puerto Rican restaurant in the city back then, and there still isn’t one today.
There are, however, two prominent chefs who are bringing their Puerto Rican heritage into their lauded kitchens.
At Wild Common, one of three Charleston restaurants to hold a Michelin star, Orlando Pagán nods to his upbringing through dishes like braised oxtail empanadas. If you like your friend enough to spend $95 on dinner, consider visiting the Spring Street restaurant to experience one of the very best tasting menu spots in the region.
In West Ashley, the pitmaster behind a more casual option has been churning out Texas- and South Carolina-inspired barbecue for more than two years.
Hector Garate checks on beef cheeks cooking in a pit outside the restaurant.
File/Henry Taylor/Staff
Palmira Barbecue chef and owner Hector Garate showcases his Puerto Rican heritage in several ways, from the aromatic sofrito used to season whole hogs to Texas-meets-Puerto Rico sausage mashups like the pionono, which grinds beef cheek trimmings with sweet plantains and gouda. Other island-inspired specials have in the past included guava-glazed burnt ends, lechón porchetta and Puerto Rican rib tips.
What’s your recommendation for a weekday lunch spot for pizza?
— Anthony
Several pizza restaurants open up for lunch on Fridays, including Melfi’s, Tutti Pizza and Timber Pizza, but there are fewer afternoon options throughout the rest of the work week.
If it were me, I would swing by downtown’s D’Allesandro’s Pizza for a Chauncinator, Park Circle’s EVO Pizzeria for its famed pesto pie, Mount Pleasant’s Toni’s Detroit Style Pizza for a square piece of pepperoni or West Ashley’s Pizza a Modo Mio for a classic New York-style slice.
Dining and Cooking