HUDSON’S ON THE DOCK
1 Hudson Road
843-681-2772 

    Everybody knows and loves Hudson’s. Since 1967 on what was once Hudson’s Oyster Factory on Port Royal Sound, this sprawling second-generation seafood house’s enormous popularity is owed to the dogged commitment of the Carmines family to obtain the finest seafood up and down the East Coast at whatever cost.
    Those costs are kept down by the Carmines owning their own fishing fleet and refrigerated trucks that contract fisherman from Charleston to northern Florida to bring in a wider array of fish than most anywhere else in the entire region—swordfish, mahi mahi, grouper, tile fish, trigger fish, vermilion snapper, black sea bass, crabs and lobsters, all of it processed in-house, so that Hudson’s each year goes through 250,000 raw oysters and 70,000 pounds of fresh shrimp, serving up to 1,200 guests a night indoors and out. They built the Shell Ring Oyster Company nearby to guarantee sustainable product.
    The field marshal who oversees these logistics and tactical considerations is Brian Carmines, originally a New Englander, who with his wife, Gloria, established the David M. Carmines Memorial Foundation to raise money through seafood festivals for MD Anderson Cancer Research Center, the Island Recreation Scholarship Fund and the American Cancer Society.
    Most nights of the week, you’ll wait for a table at Hudson’s, but you wile away the time reading the huge newsprint menu while nursing a dark and stormy or a cold beer as the suns nestles below the Sound and live entertainment begins outdoors. You might even see a a green flash on the horizon.
    Stats and history go only so far to explain Hudson’s popularity, which is really based on all that high quality seafood prepared expertly by a brigade of cooks who have perfected everything from the second-by-second timing of cooking sweet fresh barbecued shrimp (right) till tender in a rich stock with buttered baguette ($12) to the proper seasoning with roe of she crab soup ($4.95-$6.25).  I had a platter of jumbo stone crabs (market price) as meaty as they come, with a light mustard sauce, and there was next to no filler binding the fat, pan-sautéed crabcakes ($12).
    The menu goes on to flounder stuffed with more crabmeat ($22), marvelous  broiled scallops ($25) and almond-crusted grouper with a citrus beurre blanc ($25). And, at dinner’s end, there’s a superlative sour-sweet Key lime pie ($6.50).  The merely serviceable beer and wine lists are nothing to rave about, but when you feed so many people, there’s little time for connoisseurship.
    Hudson’s is one of those places, like Union Oyster House in Boston, Joe’s Stone Crabs on Miami Beach, and the Sardine Factory in Monterey, that seem essential  stops for anyone visiting Hilton Head.  And for those who have been even once, just the mention of Hudson’s is enough to bring a smile to their faces.

Open daily

 

MICHAEL ANTHONY’S
37 New Orleans Road
843-785-6272 

    I was told by HH friends that fine Italian food was not easy to come by on the island—with a single exception: Michael Anthony’s, opened by Tony and Becky Fazzini in 2002 and evoking the Italian eateries of their upbringing in Philadelphia, although, frankly, Philly is not exactly known for fine regional cucina Italiana.  Precedents aside, the Fazzinis and chef Chris Johnson are doing the kind of Italian food difficult to come by anywhere in South Carolina.
    It’s a handsome restaurant, easy to move around in, with very fine, soft romantic lighting against brick walls and white tablecloths, and a responsible decibel level.  Service is effusive without being intrusive, and menus change with the season.  The wine list is unremarkable, with most mark-ups per bottle about 200 percent.
    My friends and I began with a salad of watermelon with toasted pinenuts, arugula, aged balsamic vinegar with ricotta salata cheese, followed by three good pasta dishes. Spaghetti with crab was a natural choice for a Low Country rendition, while gnocchi cacio e pepe with cheese and cracked black pepper was as simple as it was simply wonderful; porcini tagliatelle was moistened just enough with a wild mushroom demi-glace.
    Portions are very generous here, and you’re likely to take some home, including a bistecca alla Nino Borghese, where lamb gained flavor from a black truffle and amarena cherry reduction.  Tender involtini of veal were lush with a tomato cream.
    For dessert the sformato di cioccolato was superior to tiramisu and panna cotta.  

Open Tues.-Sat. for dinner.

 

THE SAGE ROOM
81 Pope Avenue
843-785-5352

    Chef-owner Matt Jording is not trying to please everyone, for his cooking is focused with a robust excellence and beautiful presentation that command the attention of a serious gastronome, all without the slightest pretension. 
    Open only for dinner, there are no hamburger or fried fish sandwiches on the menu.  What there is shows that Jording can cook with finesse both in classic and modern styles, beginning with an excellent three onion soup ($8) of smoked provolone that gives an added nuance Gruyère lacks to the caramelized onions and goat’s cheese crostini. 
    Since it’s difficult for me ever to turn away from South Carolina’s great shrimp, I ordered a dish of them, sautéed and set over al dente angel’s hair pasta ($27) with the shrimp lightly sautéed then tossed with bell peppers, basil and garlic over a roasted tomato sauce sprinkled with good Parmigiano-Reggiano.  On the meat side of the menu I found a well-marbled, well-seared ribeye of beef first rate ($40), a 22-ounce giant sided with a bleu cheese-lavished, sage-scented potato gratin served with crisp green beans. 
    The dining room is comfortably casual but not a place I’d arrive in sporting cut-off shorts and flip-flops. A ten-person bar functions as a chef’s table that wraps around an open kitchen. The well-lighted wine wall is an impressive part of the design, and the wine list is one of the better ones on the island, with many out-of-the-ordinary labels like The Stump Jump (Australia) and Ernie Els Big Easy (South Africa), among a number of well-known, largely Californian, names like La Crema, J. Lohr, and Rex Hill.

Open for dinner Tues.-Sat. 

RED FISH
8 Archer Road
843-686-3388

    Seasonality, amply bolstered by the HH Farmer’s Market, drives chef Chaun Bescos’s menus at Red Fish, especially since he grew up on an organic farm in Hawaii, a blessing that shows up in dishes like seared ahi poke ($13) and Asian pork meatballs ($10).  So you can be sure that the greens in his salads left their beds that morning.
     If anything, the menu is too large—20 appetizers, soups and salads, 12 entrees and 10 desserts, many involving a lot of ingredients.  But he’s not about to compromise sparkling fresh grouper (market price) or a Heritage Farms Berkshire pork chop ($33), which he brines in maple syrup and serves impeccably cooked with house-cured bacon grits, sautéed broccolini and red-eye gravy—a convincing argument for how far Southern traditional food has been brought in the last few years.
    Red Fish is a great-looking spot, airy with well spaced tables, and an attached wine shop and a thousand bottles in inventory.  Sturdy chairs, white tablecloths, polished woodwork and hanging lights are wholly appropriate for the kind of casual style that also bespeaks good taste all around.

Open for lunch Mon.-Sat.; Dinner nightly.

 

NEW YORK CORNER
By John Mariani


ANGUS CLUB STEAKHOUSE

135 E 55th Street (near Third Avenue)
212-588-1585  

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR

MORE BANG FOR YOUR FOOD BUCK

A former Smith & Wesson CEO opened a gun-themed restaurant called Modern Round in Peoria, Arizona, and the company says that already 23,000 people have signed up for memberships, which cost $5 and allow people to reserve tables set up in front of giant screens, where customers can fire ultra-realistic replica guns--including a replica AR-15 with a CO2 cartridge at a series of different scenarios that include zombie-killing scenarios, duck-hunting games, games where people shoot at pigs, and even actual live-action police and military training scenarios.