All Posts

Not every great Charleston meal needs white tablecloths, a tasting menu, or a bill that requires advance financial planning. Lex Loci Local is where we consider the places you can visit on an ordinary night, eat extremely well, and leave without wondering whether dinner has imperiled your otherwise careful retirement plan. Katsubō belongs squarely in that category. We began by ordering what appeared to be most of the snack section: spicy pickled cucumbers, pickled daikon radi

In our continuing quest to find Charleston’s best Italian food, Casey, Noel, Kate, and I visited Riva Mare, the heavily hyped new restaurant at the old Navy Yard. And when I say heavily hyped, I mean social media has been breathlessly assuring Charleston that this is the hottest new place in town. Based on the meal we were served, some of those people will apparently say anything for a free dinner. Let us begin with the good. Parking was easy. The restaurant is attractive. Th

I was treated to a marvelous evening at Marbled & Fin with some of my favorite people: a collection of very good lawyers, the best forensic accountant in the state, and his darling wife, who always makes me happy simply by being at the table. This was a Friday night, and the restaurant was packed and very loud. Marbled & Fin nevertheless handled our table beautifully. One of the lawyers has celiac disease, and the staff managed her dietary needs carefully and without making h

As part of our Lex Loci Delicious search for Charleston's best Italian restaurant, Casey and I took our people to visit Muse, a Mediterranean restaurant and wine bar tucked into a charming historic home on Society Street. While the restaurant identifies itself as Mediterranean rather than strictly Italian, enough of the menu leans into classic Italian cooking that it deserved a stop on our tour. The setting is undeniably attractive. Muse occupies one of the old downtown homes

I have a problem with Estadio. I keep writing love letters to this restaurant. At some point, I am supposed to regain a little critical distance. I am supposed to stop telling people that they need to go, stop raving about whatever I ate last time, and perhaps find a new restaurant to obsess over. Estadio is making that very difficult. After my last extraordinary dinner there with a group of younger lawyers, I decided to return with the more mature contingent of lady lawyers.

There are disappointing meals, and then there are meals that are disappointing precisely because you know the restaurant can do better and that is certainly Edmund’s Original. The restaurant is the former Edmund’s Oast Restaurant, now operating as Edmund’s Original. I had eaten well at Edmund’s Oast before, so I came into this dinner with considerable goodwill. We were also dining with a group, and one of our guests is friends with one of the owners. We expected a great meal,

Brasserie La Banque has been one of my Charleston favorites for a while, but there is a difference between having a good dinner at a restaurant and taking a large group of friends, ordering your way through a significant portion of the menu, and seeing whether the restaurant can still deliver. On this visit, Brasserie La Banque did. This was a big dinner. We covered the seafood tower, steak tartare, heirloom tomatoes, gnocchi, the duck, the steak frites, the wreckfish viennoi

Every cuisine has restaurants that faithfully reproduce recipes. Far fewer manage to recreate a culture. Leyla does. Owned and operated by former College of Charleston economics professor Dolly Awkar and her family, Leyla is the kind of restaurant that quietly reminds you that hospitality is not something you train. It is something you live. From the moment we arrived, the service was warm, attentive, and genuinely welcoming, the sort of graciousness that would feel familiar

There are restaurants that impress you by showing you something new, and there are restaurants that remind you why the classics became classics in the first place. Maison, the French neighborhood restaurant on King Street, largely belongs in the second category. French cooking is a dangerous undertaking for a restaurant precisely because so much of it is familiar. Foie gras. Escargot. Duck confit. Steak tartare. Pommes frites. These dishes arrive carrying decades, sometimes c

Every once in a while, I walk into a restaurant and my first reaction has nothing to do with the food. It's disappointment: not because of what arrives on the plate, but because there aren't enough people there to appreciate it. That was my reaction the first time I visited Estadio. Chef Jeremy Gozlan has quietly built one of Charleston's most exciting restaurants, yet I looked around the dining room and wondered, "Where is everyone????" I left determined to find out whether

There is something beautifully appropriate about spending the Fourth of July celebrating one of America's greatest strengths: the immigrant families whose courage, determination, and work ethic have shaped our communities and transformed our food culture. Sometimes the American Dream isn't found in a history book. Sometimes it's tucked into a neighborhood strip mall in West Ashley. Welcome to PHO & PADTHAI Vietnamese-Thai Cuisine. Located in the same shopping center as Chef L

A few months ago, I drove an hour to Dorchester County, ate one of the best Mexican meals I have had in South Carolina, and came home wondering why Charleston was not talking about La Minerva. A couple of weeks ago, I went back and I brought witnesses. Six of them. After enthusiastically singing the restaurant's praises to friends, family, and fellow food lovers, I decided to put my reputation on the line and organize a group dinner. Nothing tests a restaurant quite like a la

Every family has traditions. Ours usually involve food. When my daughter Noel and her husband, Desmond, celebrate another anniversary, we don't exchange extravagant gifts. We gather around a table. This year it was Noel, Desmond, and my son, George, sharing one of the most extraordinary dining experiences Charleston has to offer with me. Honeysuckle Rose has always been special to me, but this evening felt different. Perhaps it was because anniversaries naturally make you ref

There are restaurants where you go because you are hungry. There are restaurants where you go because you are curious. And then there are restaurants you trust with the people you love. Zero George belongs firmly in the third category. Last week, I gathered the people who have stood beside me through victories, defeats, family milestones, personal and professional disasters, celebrations, grief, and decades of friendship. These are the people who answer the phone when life go

There is a particular challenge facing long-established restaurants. After enough years of success, many become museums to their former glory. The room remains beautiful. The service remains polished. The menu remains familiar. The food, however, often stops evolving. That is not what is happening at Circa 1886. Located in the original carriage house behind the historic Wentworth Mansion, Circa 1886 has now been serving Charleston diners for twenty-six years. On paper, it sou

My young lawyer friend and I have spent the last several months on a completely self-appointed mission to determine who is serving the best Italian food in Charleston. This week's stop was Mario's on King Street. The verdict? The search continues. Let's start with the positives. For a downtown restaurant, parking is not terrible. Street parking exists, and there is a paid lot nearby. Neither option is ideal, but neither requires a blood sacrifice to the Charleston parking god

My first visit to Wild Common left me unconvinced that Charleston's Michelin experiment was producing sensible results. My second visit left me wondering whether the inspectors ate somewhere else entirely. After all, I wanted to like this place. I really did. When Michelin awarded Wild Common a star, I assumed my initial disappointment must have been an anomaly. I mean, I absolutely love all the other restaurants in this group. Perhaps I had visited on an off night. Perhaps I

For years, Wild Olive on Johns Island has been one of the safest recommendations in Charleston. Business Dinner? Wild Olive. Need to take out-of-town guests somewhere that won't embarrass you? Wild Olive. Need a reliable meal with good service, reasonable prices, easy parking, and broad appeal? Wild Olive. Dinner with family to see if your little brother has finally met the right girl? Wild Olive. For a long time, I viewed that reliability as both its greatest strength and it

Every now and then I stumble into a meal that leaves me genuinely confused. Not because the food is bad. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I cannot understand why everyone in Charleston is not already talking about it. That was my experience at Estadio's latest incarnation under Chef Jeremy Gozlan. The first thing you notice is the space. The renovation is beautiful. The dining room now feels unmistakably Spanish, with gorgeous tile work, warm colors, comfortable seating, an

Sometimes you are not looking for the next transcendent Charleston dining experience. Sometimes you just need a Tuesday night with your hot lawyer friends, good food, good cocktails, and a place that lets you linger for a while without making you feel guilty about it. That is exactly what we found at Prohibition. Located on Upper King, parking is the usual downtown scavenger hunt, though our group was fortunate enough to find nearby street parking and garage options. Once ins