Over the last 15 years, Charleston’s restaurant scene has gone from an emerging market to one sought out by food enthusiasts from across the world. Perhaps the culmination of this shift was the Michelin Guide’s entrance into South Carolina last November.
The new American South guide features more than a dozen Charleston restaurants, many clustered in and around downtown’s Cannonborough-Elliottborough neighborhood. From Vern’s, Malagón and Wild Common, each of which earned a Michelin star, to Chubby Fish, Leon’s Oyster Shop and Xiao Bao Biscuit, establishments featured in the guide have immediately jumped to the front of foodies’ lists for exploring the Holy City.
And while the French tire company’s famous restaurant dispatch highlights some of my favorite restaurants in the area, many that were not included are an essential part of our city’s dining scene. Noteworthy options span the entire Charleston area, too.
Customers and employees walk throughout the interior of King BBQ on Carver Ave., Thursday, July 3, 2025, in North Charleston. King BBQ was recognized by the Preservation Society of Charleston in their yearly Carolopolis Awards for preservation efforts at their Carver Avenue location, where the owners combined two next door businesses, a deli and a church.
File/Henry Taylor/Staff
Dining on and around the peninsula
Consider King BBQ in North Charleston, where “Top Chef” finalist Shuai Wang and his culinary team pair Chinese and North Carolina-style barbecue traditions to produce dishes like moo shu chopped smoked pork, shrimp toast sliders and five-spice rotisserie chicken, wowing diners during lunch and dinner.
In Hanahan, a town of about 20,000 between North Charleston and Goose Creek, Cane Pazzo has earned rave reviews since opening last year. One of several Italian restaurants to debut in the past few years, the strip mall destination features food with personality, nuance and plenty of intrigue, with vegetables and heritage meats shining just as bright as the hand-rolled pastas.
West Ashley is home to one of the area’s top barbecue restaurants, Palmira Barbecue, and, across the Wappoo Creek in James Island, Bar George endures as a neighborhood favorite with crisp cocktails, oysters and Peruvian chicken.
On Johns Island, Lost Isle’s fully outdoor 23-foot kitchen and “dining room” behind a small, single-story building earned the attention of The New York Times, and on Sullivan’s Island, James Beard Award-winner Jason Stanhope is making his mark on Sullivan’s Fish Camp with well-sourced seafood and his elegant renditions of Southern seafood staples.
Agnolotti with a cream corn filling, ricotta, heirloom tomato, garlic and Parmesan plated at Cane Pazzo, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025, in Hanahan.
File/Henry Taylor/Staff
Meanwhile, downtown Charleston is home to several exciting newcomers.
Merci is making waves with steak tartare, fresh focaccia draped in Benton’s ham, roasted asparagus with crab, beef Wellington and dark chocolate mousse. Visit Volpe for its family-style Italian meal, which brings multiple antipasti selections, one pasta, two main entrees and dessert to the dinner table, and OK Donna for Italian-ish plates ranging from roasted cabbage with miso butter to spicy pork “spaghettoni” infused with Calabrian chilis.
When it comes to global flavors from the Asian continent, Rivayat serves items that stretch from Southern India to thousands of miles north. Among my favorites is the tandoori oysters sourced from Steamboat Creek Oyster Farm on Edisto Island. The briny bivalves steep in their Kashmiri chili powder, dried fenugreek and garam masala-seasoned surroundings, the spices blended with butter melted on top before the oysters are heated in a clay oven.
Cochin scallops served at Rivayat on Rutledge Avenue, Tuesday, April 29, 2026, in Charleston.
File/Grace Beahm Alford/Staff
Bareo, owned by Kultura’s Nikko Cagalanan and Paula Kramer, dives into the culinary traditions of Japan and the Philippines. Lunch or dinner might commence with onigiri, triangular rice balls filled with scallops, tuna, crab with mango and more.
No trip to the Spring Street restaurant is complete without an order of halo-halo kakigori, a vibrant purple mountain of ube-infused soft-shaved ice crowned in a miniature flan and Fruity Pebbles. Contained within the feathery shards are pieces of jackfruit and strawberry candy jellies.
Long-standing essentials
There is still plenty of room for the long-standing Southern staples, of course. Many are located in downtown Charleston.
Descendants of enslaved Africans who brought their cooking techniques to coastal plantations across the region continue to pay homage to their ancestors’ cuisine at Gullah-Geechee restaurants in Charleston. Trying fresh fried whiting, okra soup, red rice and other essential Gullah dishes is a must when in Charleston. Bertha’s Kitchen and Hannibal’s Kitchen are exceptional places to do just that.
A handful of egusi with goat meat from Bintu Atelier on March 7, 2024, in Charleston.
File/Henry Taylor/Staff
The African influence that has greatly contributed to what we know as Charleston cuisine today is also on display at Bintü Atelier. At the small East Side establishment, Senegal-born James Beard Award semifinalist Bintou N’Daw Young blends Senegalese recipes with food from across the African continent, such as suya, a Nigerian snack of beef skewers dusted in a peanut powder so good it could be eaten with a spoon.
Reservation availability permitting, it’s always worth making time for a visit to FIG, led by James Beard Award-winning chef Mike Lata. The restaurant remains just as relevant as it was when Lata was crowned Best Chef: Southeast in 2009 for his blend of Lowcountry ingredients and countryside French cooking.
A half-mile away, Slightly North of Broad, known locally as SNOB, has kept up with the times since opening in 1993. To the delight of many diners, SNOB’s white tablecloths, free cornbread and precise service signal the restaurant is from an era that focused heavily on guest experience. That hospitable style of treating customers with care lives on today, making it one of many Charleston restaurants worth reserving for lunch or dinner.
Some of Charleston diners’ favorite local destinations don’t accept reservations at all.
Chubby Fish is known for caviar sliders, grilled oysters doused in crab fat curry and sprinkled with puffed rice and seared tuna toro, delicately cooked and surrounded by shiso, jalapenos and bits of crispy shallots. Patrons can share those small plates plus larger entrées, such as grilled wreckfish with beet butter, smoked wahoo curry and tagliatelle with clams, before popping by Chubby Fish’s next-door bar, Seahorse, for a taste of some of the most interesting cocktails in Charleston.
Studying a list of top restaurants in the area is sure to produce 167 Raw. Over the last decade-plus, diners have grown to appreciate the business for the way its New England roots mesh with Southern seafood culture.
At the King Street restaurant, tables fill with briny raw oysters and ones fried and tossed in a sweet, sticky glaze. There are decadent dishes like lobster agnolotti, rolled and filled in-house, and gourmet handhelds, from the classic lobster roll to the hot honey garlic-draped, beet purée-drizzled scallop po’ boy.
It might not be in the Michelin Guide, but the raw bar showcases some of the best of what Charleston’s vibrant dining scene has to offer.
