Charleston, South Carolina, has long been celebrated for its cuisine, which represents a centuries-deep pantry of flavors. Heirloom grains, signature dishes, and chef-driven creativity make it one of the country’s most captivating food destinations. As Afar’s podcast director, Aislyn Greene, learned while on location in the area reporting a four-part series for Afar’s Unpacked podcast, the Lowcountry’s famed culinary “roux” is anything but simple. The richness of the local food culture is shaped by the traditions, migrations, and complicated histories of the many cultures that built it. To truly experience the Charleston region, Greene discovered you have to taste it.
Dine at iconic Charleston restaurants
82 Queen’s courtyard
Courtesy of Explore Charleston/Andrew Cebulka
The flavors are only the first step, however. No serious gastronomic journey in the Charleston area is complete without hearing from one of its foremost food experts, chef Kevin Mitchell, who’s also a chef-instructor at the Culinary Institute of Charleston, a historian, an author, and a television host. “If you’re here five nights, you can go to five different restaurants and have five different renditions of shrimp and grits—probably 30. But the base of the dish is always there: shrimp and grits,” he says.
Mitchell, whose scholarship illuminates the contributions of African American culinarians, brings depth and passion to the story of Lowcountry cuisine—from the influence of Gullah Geechee foodways to the heirloom ingredients he champions on his show Savers of Flavor. His work, including the revival of Nat Fuller’s historic 1865 feast, a recreation of a dinner a Black chef produced following Emancipation, has helped visitors understand how the roots of Charleston’s most iconic dishes are in creativity and resilience.
Guided by that insight, you’ll enjoy the Holy City’s many definitive dishes, such as she-crab soup. Start with the famed rendition at 82 Queen, a landmark restaurant that’s been perfecting the dish since 1982. “We have sold millions of gallons of it at this point,” says Jonathan Kish, 82 Queen’s CEO. The dining destination’s menu also features flavors influenced by African, French, Caribbean, and Anglo-Saxon cultures, making for quintessential Lowcountry cuisine.
Circa 1886.
Courtesy of Explore Charleston/Andrew Cebulka
Continue your exploration at the Grocery, where chef-owner Kevin Johnson crafts plates informed by more than 250 years of regional tradition. Or reserve a table at Circa 1886. The restaurant helmed by chef Marc Collins—co-founder of Charleston Wine + Food—offers two curated tasting menus celebrating Lowcountry classics.
Try the Charleston City Market, food tours, and crabbing
Tia Clark and crabs caught during one of her Casual Crabbing with Tia experiences
Courtesy of Explore Charleston
To bring the area’s culinary heritage home, shop for the ingredients that define the cuisine. At the Historic Charleston City Market, you’ll find staples such as Carolina Gold rice, heirloom middlins (also known as rice grits), stone-ground grits, and crisp benne wafers (sesame cookies)—flavors that anchor Lowcountry cooking and connect today’s tables to centuries past.
From there, food historian and guide Tyler Page Wright Friedman leads the Walk and Talk tour, tracing the layered culinary roots of the Charleston region. Through stories shaped by the planter class, the influence of enslaved Africans, and the global exchange that flowed through the city’s once-bustling port, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of how culture, resilience, and migration shaped the dishes we know today.
To conclude a food-focused visit to this Southern destination, we recommend returning to its start in the Gullah Geechee community with one of its most charismatic ambassadors, Tia Clark of Casual Crabbing with Tia. Clark’s hands-on, one-on-one immersion takes you into Charleston’s winding waterways to learn the art of crabbing and the coastal traditions behind one of the region’s most beloved ingredients. Part how-to, part history lesson, it’s all proof that the Charleston area’s unforgettable flavors are born from tides, tradition, and the people who keep them alive.
For more on Charleston’s culinary identity, listen to the Afar Unpacked podcast episode, “Charleston Serves Up More Than 300 Years of Flavor—and Every Bite Tells a Story.”
