What happens when you walk into a Charleston restaurant, hand the menu back, and say — "Surprise me"?
This blog was born on a Friday night at a bar in Charleston — not from a plan, but from a moment. A birthday. A beverage manager named Sean who disappeared into a kitchen and came back with something we didn't expect. A chef we didn't know yet, plating dishes we never would have ordered on our own. And a meal that became one of the great evenings of my life.
That night, we didn't choose a single thing on our plates. We surrendered — completely — to the kitchen. And what came back was extraordinary. Not just the food. The experience. The care. The way a meal can become a memory when someone else is steering.
It made me wonder: what if I kept doing this? What if, every time I sat down at a table in this city, I handed the reins over entirely — no menu, no decisions, no second-guessing — and simply let the chef decide? And then what if I wrote about it? Not just the dishes and the wines, but the feeling of it. The people behind the plates. The stories. The moments that made me close my eyes and forget where I was.
That's what this is.
You might notice this is a little like what the great Michelin critics do when they're evaluating a restaurant for their stars. They don't walk in with a checklist. They sit. They taste. They let the restaurant show them who it is. That's the spirit of this blog — though I'm not here to judge. I'm here to celebrate. To shine a light on the chefs, the bartenders, the sommeliers, and the hidden corners of Charleston that are doing something beautiful, one plate at a time.
Charleston is a city that takes its table seriously. From the oldest restaurants in the historic district to the newest kitchens pushing boundaries in the Neck — there is so much happening here, and most of it never makes it past the locals who already know. This blog is my way of finding it. Of sitting down, letting go, and telling you what I find.
So pull up a chair. Pour yourself something lovely. And stay a while.