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    A good deal of ferment has been owed to the remarkable success of the annual Charleston Food & Wine Festival, held in springtime, now in its seventh year. I have happily attended most of those festivals and watched it grow from a darling idea plotted out over café tables to the most serious, but wholly fun-filled, food festival in America. As Aspen, Vail, Los Angles and Miami Beach's festivals have come to rely more and more on the same TV celebrities every year, often in multiple festivals, the Charleston event is very clearly focused on serious chefs (a few with TV creds) and cooking.  The demos are excellent, the wine tastings serious, and the panel discussions thoughtful.     
      There is always a good cadre of Charleston chefs, this year including Craig Deihl of Cypress, Daniel Doyle of Poogan's Porch, Frank Lee of Slightly North of Broad, Frank McMahon of Hank's, and many more.  In addition, the fly-ins included Andrew Carmellini of Locanda Verde (NYC), Anne Quatrano of Abatoir (ATL), Anthony Lamas of Seviche (Louisville), Barbara Lynch of No. 9 Park (Boston), and many more culinary lights, along with authors Gabrielle Hamilton, Hugh Acheson, Nathalie Dupree, Matt and Ted Lee, John Besh, and others.
    The "Heart of the Festival" is the tented Culinary Village, where back-to-back demos, book signings, and music are held throughout each day. Testament to the success and popularity of the Festival is not just that it's grown, led by the ever ebullient founding mother Angel Postell, with enormous support from the City of Charleston itself, but that its various events sell out weeks in advance.  Next year I expect it to be bigger and better than ever.
    While there, I got to eat at some terrific new spots in town.  Here's my report.

THE MACINTOSH
479B King Street
843-789-4299
www.themacintoshcharleston.com
Photos by Stephen Cebulka and Leslie McKellar

     Steve Palmer has been one of Charleston's canniest restaurateurs of recent years, always a step ahead of the competition and, maybe, even his own customers. Who knew, for instance, that Charlestonians were ready for a cavernous Japanese sushi restaurant called O-Kuh? He also is behind Oak, an innovative, three-story steakhouse downtown that has packed them in since the day it opened. If his newest venture, The Macintosh seems to borrow from other cities' gastropub current mania, Palmer and his partners have given it a Southern swank (complete with upstairs cocktail lounge, communal tables, and leather banquettes) that is uniquely Charleston, and Chef Jeremiah Bacon (right) goes way beyond the current clichés of examples elsewhere with a menu that is very much his own.
    He plates his dishes with restraint and a beauty that focuses right in on the main ingredient, whether its grilled octopus with a panzanella salad and red watercress or ricotta gnudi with morsels of stone crabs and tomatoes, each element bringing color and textural contrast to the dish. Two outstanding dishes are Bacon's braised rabbit (below), slowly roasted tomato that brings out its sweetness, ricotta salata for a saline edge, a potato cake and caramelized shallots--this is an appetizer!-- and his brilliant use of pork belly in a hot and sour soup with hot kimchee, shiitakes and bok choy, quite possibly the first pork belly dish out of a hundred Ive had this year that had any real difference and cunning.
    Among the entrees I'll remember was a snowy grouper with Swiss chard, parsnip, a brown butter crumble and a shot of citrus puree to brighten the whole assemblage. A bit overwrought but good was a duck confit with bacon sorghum jus, field peas, red pea, frisée and fennel marmalade, which is as good an example of modern Southern cuisine as any dish in Charleston. Grilled deckle, an under-utilized cut, didn't have as much flavor as I'd expected, but it was helped along with celeriac puree, creamed greens, pickled pearl onions, and roasted fingerlings. Bacon is not a chef to cheat you of flavors and textures.
   I think I could subsist on The Macintosh's side dishes quite happily--bone marrow bread pudding of extraordinary richness ( a dish that originated at Oak Steakhouse when Bacon cooked there), "Mac" potatoes, and pecorino-dusted and truffle fried potatoes. What's not to love?
    Desserts, oddly enough, are currently being made outside the restaurants, including spiced apple cake, and sticky bun bread pudding.
    Steve Palmer and Chef Bacon are to be congratulated for giving Charleston a novel restaurant where what guests expect are nudged into something novel, not to be found around town, and they do so with a swagger that is irresistible.

The Macintosh is open Mon.-Sat. for dinner. Brunch on Sun. Starters $8-$15, main courses $20-$29.

 

THE GROCERY
4 Cannon Street
843-302-8825
www.thegrocerycharleston.com

    Wholly likable, with an emphasis on "wholly," is a good way to describe the generous, warmhearted newcomer The Grocery, where Chef/owner Kevin Johnson is turning out a menu that only a vegan would walk out on.  Not that Johnson doesn't turn out excellent vegetables--in fact, he cans his own--but this is a restaurant that's devoted to big eats, starting with a gargantuan array of charcuterie.
    The place doesn't look like much--it's a converted furniture warehouse--a big minimalist room whose only real decorous displays are cases of Creuset cookware, dark ceiling with exposed duct work, and old brick--but it's a gregarious place the locals have captured early on, and those who have been here invariably ask others, "Have you been to The Grocery yet?"
    For the most part this is a small plates venture, beginning with snacks like charred onion dip with potato chips; delicious chicken liver mousse with sprightly persimmon jam and toast; addictive, sweet fried green tomatoes; and a "piggy plate" of housemade charcuterie in profusion. You could make a meal of these cheaply--none costs more than $6 (the piggy plate is $15), and then you could also draw from the "Bites" section that includes a fine, crispy flatbread with fennel sausage, spring onions, arugula and ricotta--a splendid match-up.  Pork rules here, as in the pig's trotter cake, rich with its own fat, served with a red pea salad and classic sauce gribiche.  Sweet potato agnolotti's only fault is that there aren't enough of them, but at $10 a plate, might as well order two: they come with spiced pecans and brown butter.
    You move on to "Tastes" (I'm not sure why the menu needs all these confusing categories) like tagliatelle with pancetta, pecorino, pepper and a soft egg, a nice take on carbonara. "Plates" encompass items like a flounder with wood-roasted vegetables and clams in a sweet garlic broth that really works.  Best dish of all was an impeccably whole roasted beeline snapper (left) with fennel, lemon and salsa verde--as good a fish dish as I've had this side of the Italian Riviera. Also, consider the side dishes of greens, bacon, pickled onions and chili flakes, and the wood-roasted bulb onions with feta cheese, almonds, and a romesco sauce. 
    Desserts include easy-to-love items like banana trifle with sour cream pound cake; S'mores with Graham cracker crust and fudge brownie over housemade marshmallow; and crisp, hot churros with salted caramel, and chili-orange chocolate.  You'll leave smiling.

  Open for dinner Tues.-Sat. Brunch Sat. & Sun. Snacks and Bites cost $4-$13, Tastes and Plates $15-$3

 

CARTER'S kitchen
148 Civitas Street
Mount Pleasant, SC
843-284-0840
www.carterskitchen.com

    The town of Mount Pleasant, just five minutes over the bridge from Charleston, is as charming in its small town way as Charleston is in its small city way. Located at the Inn at I’On on Civitas Street (which locals pronounce "Sih-vee-tus") in Mount Pleasant, Carter’s Kitchen looks like it's always been there, but in fact, when the redoubtable Chef/owner Robert Carter (below), formerly the star chef at The Peninsula Grill, took over, he gutted everything, added a room and bar, and made it look as if he'd just applied some fresh paint.  It's an enchanting space, dotted with Carter's collection of copper cookware; napkins are gingham check; flowers sprout from copper kettles.  Otherwise it's all done in pretty hues of butter yellow and cream, and I can only imagine how lovely everything is in sunlight.  On a spring evening, with a crescent moon, it was like a beacon of welcome.
     Carter has a long résumé, with stints at The Inn  at Blackberry Farm in Walland, TN, then a long tenure at before filling that same role at Peninsula Grill when it opened in 1997. As other fine Charleston chefs like Mike Lata at Fig and Sean Brock at McCrady's and Husk flexed their muscles to widen the boundaries of Southern cooking, Carter continued to refine traditional concepts, exemplified by his multi-layered coconut cake that became nationally famous as an icon of Southern baking. The beautiful Peninsula Grill was itself refined in a way that expressed genteel Southern dining, and Carter's leaving worried many that its star would darken. (I have not been back but I'm told the restaurant is in the good hands of Carter's former sous-chef.)
    At Carter's Kitchen, the style is more casual, the food a little gutsier, but every dish manifests Carter's commitment to Southern ingredients and traditions; every dish is also expressive of decades of his own development as a master chef.  Take something as simple as his crispy okra chips (from the abbreviated Tavern menu), an idea I haven't seen before and one Carter makes wholly his own by providing a tomato aïoli dip. His pimento cheese with benne crackers did not convince me of that Southern staple's endurance, but his crispy chicken gizzards with brandy ketchup brought that neglected protein into applaudable focus.
    Among the dining room's small plates, there is a first-rate grilled quail with oven-dried tomato, spinach, goat's cheese, and fettuccine--typical of how Carter adds global idea to old concepts. His cast iron skillet-cooked mussels co-exist with spicy sausage as well as white wine and garlic, while a duck and pork boudin sausage comes with crispy onions and a hot Creole mustard.  Only a plate of seared scallop with a parsnip-potato puree and bacon marmalade seemed a bit strained.
    The main dishes continued to soar: delectably simple braised pork shoulder with crispy cabbage and fresh pasta graced with the braising juices. As good a NY strip steak as you'll find in Charleston is on the menu here, with excellent French fries and a dip of Bearnaise to gild the lily. Flounder and shrimp are cooked crisp--the kind of dish you'll find in Charleston's tourist eateries--but here done perfectly, so the sweetness of the very fresh seafood is the star, supplemented by tartar sauce and made truly enticing with the addition of cheese grits and corn fritters even Mitt Romney might honestly appreciate. Duck confit (below) was marvelously crisp but not greasy in the least, served with lentils, spinach, and frisée lettuce, as classic French as a dish can be.
    I haven't had tuna au poivre in ages and was glad I did at Carter's Kitchen.  By combining the rosy red, black pepper dusted tuna with a grilled leek risotto and a tomato caper butter, he redeemed a dish that long ago fell out of favor.  So, too, simple lamb chops with "Bootleg BBQ sauce." salted pecans and a mushroom pot pie become something unique here.
    Desserts change a lot here (and an agreement with The Peninsular Grill precludes Carter from reproducing his coconut cake for the time being), but I loved his old-fashioned chocolate pudding and the lemon meringue pie.  His new bid as a signature dessert is a peanut brittle layer cake--good but way too sweet right now.
    It is wonderful to see Carter back in business and cooking with more panache than ever. If you visit Charleston, a quick drive across the beautiful Arthur Ravenel Jr Bridge into Mount Pleasant is requisite if you want to appreciate why Low Country cooking is some of the most exciting in the nation.

Open for dinner Mon.-Sat. Sun. brunch.  Starters $8-$12.50, main courses $18-$26.50. tavern menu $4.50-$14.50.

 



 

cru café

18 Pinckney Street
843-534-2434
crucafe.com

  For the past two decades I've often dropped into this clapboard house on Pinckney Street, just outside of downtown, for a casual meal. It used to be called the Pinckney Café, but Chef John Zucker changed that to Cru Café a few year back, and since 2002, it's always been packed with regulars and visitors who come for the no-frills but cozy ambiance and the evolving, good cooking.
    It looks pretty much like someone's home from the outside, and the feeling continues inside with trim décor, window draperies, and pretty scones. (The potted plant could use a watering and the staff's white t-shirts a good soak in Clorox.)
  This time I had lunch at the counter in front of the open kitchen where you can watch everything come together with remarkable, graceful dispatch. In one corner a cook is making salads, in another a guy is peeling potatoes. The gas range is fired up high and the sauté pans go from one to another at a clip. It's fun, and such a kitchen shows none of the utter nonsense that people are led to believe goes on in professional kitchens from watching those stupid TV shows starring screaming chefs and emotional cripples.
    Zucker has high street cred in Charleston, having worked at Spago in Vegas and as a consultant to McCrady's, Rue de Jean and other local restaurants. He calls his cooking Eclectic Modern American Cuisine--fair enough if vague, but you'll get the idea from the number of Mediterranean, Asian, and Caribbean influences on his menu.
    I had time only for a quick lunch at the counter, the menu mainly built on salads, small plates and sandwiches, but I was entirely sated by an intriguing little dish of "pork pulled burrata," which was a cake of juicy Berkshire pork whose center oozed mozzarella, dashed with a BBQ demi-glace.  Out of interest in what it could possibly be, I ordered "Cru's General Tso's Chicken" which, though a little sweet, was a very good and very generous portion of that New York Chinese item, served with fried rice and cole slaw.  With it I had a good cold Palmetto Amber beer.
    Just to give you an idea of how dinner changes the equation at Cru Café, here's a list of items I intend to try next time: duck confit arugula salad; potato gnocchi with fennel sausage and white wine cream; four cheese macaroni; swordfish with stone ground grits, shrimp jambalaya, and fried onions; and praline coated mahi mahi with pea, pancetta and fingerling potato salad.
    At the bottom of the menu it reads, "At Times We May Run Out of Certain Items to Ensure the Freshest Possible Product." That's not an unusual statement, but when you visit Cru Café, you'll get a real sense that they mean what they say.

Open for lunch Tues.-Sat., for dinner nightly. Dinner starters $4-$$10-75, main courses $19.95-$24.95.

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