South Carolina Restaurants

Andolini’s Pizza has earned continuing popular acclaim from readers of the Charleston City Paper, who rank it the best New York Style Pizza in the city year after year. The Andolini’s team bakes dough, grates cheese, and makes sauces in-house. They sell hand-tossed pizzas by the slice alongside whole pies festooned with traditional toppings such as Italian sausage, anchovies, and mushrooms. Avid patrons can also purchase an Andolini’s t-shirt to proclaim their allegiance to the restaurant, or simply smear a slice of cheese and pepperoni directly onto their own shirt.

Saluda's Restaurant celebrates many histories. Its solid mahogany bar was part of Philadelphia's Blakely Hotel in the late 1800s, its walls sport vintage European posters advertising festive drinks, and its menu pays homage to timeless Southern staples, from shrimp and grits to artfully grilled rib eyes. Perhaps the greatest nod to the past is the building itself, which was constructed after World War I as a VFW officers club. There, veterans would gather to carouse and reminisce, fostering a convivial tradition that Saluda's has since restored and nurtured.

Executive chef Blake Fairies fuels the animated atmosphere with dishes whose down-home roots benefit from French and Italian influences. His prime concern is freshness—in an interview with Undefined magazine, he revealed how his fish du jour is often prepped the day after his friend Mark, a member of Abundant Seafood in Charleston, lures it onto his boat with promises of a free tropical time share. Like much of the kitchen's produce, chef Blake’s flash-fried green tomatoes come from local farms, and his entrees incorporate seasonal ingredients to complement ones imported from across the world. The results are plates that blend classic taste with inventive zest: steaks in black-truffle butter, helpings of handmade pasta, and pork chops brined in sweet tea. At the bar, guests can peruse more than 300 wines as well as cocktails and small-batch bourbon.

Next to the day's special dishes, the chalkboard at Alluette's Café proudly proclaims a few phrases that may shock loyalists to the fried-chicken school of soul food: "Vegans Welcome," "This is a no Pork Cafe," "Organic & Natural Products," and "Fresh Local Seafood." Alluette Jones-Smalls has been cooking up what she calls "holistic soul food" in various ventures since 1993, but after she overcame the cancer that nearly claimed her life, she embraced the concept of fresh ingredients, free of toxic chemicals, with more vigor than ever.

Now, she's come back to her Charleston roots at Aluette's Café. She cooks everything up to order, which takes a little longer—but Travel + Leisure magazine makes it clear that it's worth the wait, calling the food "vegetable-centric, truly luscious, Southern food." O, The Oprah Magazine's Celia Barbour praised the shrimp as "quite possibly the tastiest … I've ever eaten, dusted with spicy flour and fried so lightly that each sweet crustacean bore a crisp, fragile shell." Alluette doesn't add sugar to any of her dishes or drinks—including her signature Aunt Mary's iced tea, which is sweetened with fruit juice.

Guests can admire the local artwork on Alluette's brightly painted walls as they wait for local shrimp over organic, seasonal greens or hormone-free grilled chicken with brown rice and lima beans. Alluette frequently invites live musicians, poets, and other artists to perform in the shop, and out on the patio, herbs and flowers uproot themselves to waltz for diners.

Established in 2009, Mojo’s Famous Burgers mingles classic American eats with rockabilly music and décor inspired by tattoo art at two locations. The menu harkens to '50s diner fare with hand-cut onion rings, old-fashioned milk shakes, and build-your-own burgers with two patty sizes. A selection of specialty burgers crowns premium aged beef with toppings inspired by regional flavors—Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Philly, or Hawaiian style—and the chef’s favorite natural disaster. The eatery’s wall of fame commemorates diners who chowed through a food challenge featuring quadruple cheeseburgers or loaded foot-long hot dogs.

Inside the kitchen at Bistro 536, head chef Alastair Nairn and sous chef Michael Rogers craft updated versions of American cuisine that change with the seasons. In a feature on ABC 4's Lowcountry Live!, Nairn explained that his Scottish roots surface in his cooking, whether it's in a blue crab pot pie or classic plates of fish and chips. Low lights and dark woods in the dining room wrap diners in a cozy embrace, inviting soft conversation amid the flickering table candles and wall sconces as radiant as a 5-year old that correctly spelled "sconces". While the menu changes regularly throughout the year, past specialties have included beef medallions with truffled red potatoes, bacon-wrapped scallops, and prosciutto-wrapped salmon with sundried tomato-pesto cream.

Although few would think to pile peanut butter and bacon onto a burger, the PB3—which has both—is a favorite of Luke 'n Ollie's Pizzeria owner Jonathan Swartz and a legion of loyal customers. According to The Island Eye News, after tasting a similar creation in New Orleans, Swartz worked on his own to add to the Luke ‘n Ollie’s menu. Swartz is an expert at adding creative twists to entrees: his BLT delights tongues with fried green tomatoes, and a chicken sandwich brightens with teriyaki sauce and pineapple. But his pizzeria doesn’t shy away from sticking to the classics. Its pizza crusts—made New York-style by a local baker who follows Swartz’s own secret recipe—pile with mozzarella, gorgonzola, and pecorino, and diners can bite into traditional meatball or eggplant-parmesan subs while lounging amid the dining room’s exposed brick and black-and-white tiled floor.

Guests can also dine alfresco near palm trees on the patio, where the breeze mercifully dries foreheads as their owners take on the Steak Bomb Challenge. A fan of the Food Network and its creative competitions, Swartz decided to create his own challenge: 10 ounces of philly cheesesteak, 8 ounces of hamburger, 4 ounces of italian sausage, and a quarter pound of melted mozzarella sandwiched onto an 18-inch italian sub bun, all flanked by mountains of french fries. If diners can chow it all down in under an hour, they get it for free. Although many have tried, few brave American heroes have gotten their photos tacked up on the Wall of Winners.

Before leaving, diners should remember to get their photo taken or their portrait painted with Ollie, the 5-foot dog statue on the front patio who dons anything from bathing suits to Hazmat suits to Santa hats according to the seasons.