Where To Eat In Charleston, South Carolina | Breakfast, Dinner & Dessert
When you’re in the south, food is an attraction; that’s part of why you visit. Southern comfort is synonymous with soul food, so whether it’s Atlanta, New Orleans, or here in Charleston it’s high priority to tour restaurants and try food, especially those that are native to the area and preferably black-owned.
If you’re like me and you weren’t aware, rice is a major part of the culture and history of Charleston so you’ll see it on nearly every menu. You’ll also come across many fundamentally southern seafood dishes like shrimp and grits or she crab soup.
We wanted to try as many places as we could without overdoing it so here are eight places we made it to.
1. Callie's Hot Little Biscuit (breakfast)
476 1/2 King St, Charleston, SC 29403
Callie’s is interesting because they have full size biscuit sandwiches but then they also have mini biscuits where if you wanted to try more than one flavor you can get several biscuits instead of one large biscuit. I had the sausage, egg and cheddar biscuit that was tasty if you’re looking for your commonplace breakfast biscuit. The variety of flavors is in the smaller biscuits. I’m really big on good drinks and Callie’s has a delicious meyer lemonade that I could recommend as well.
2. Eastside Soul Food (Lunch & Dinner)
46 America St, Charleston, SC 29403
Eastside was not a place I had food from; however, my brother ordered delivery and he enjoyed it, so I figured it was worth mentioning on the list of restaurants to visit, especially because it’s black owned.
3. Magnolias (Brunch, Lunch & Dinner)
185 E Bay St, Charleston, SC 29401
Referred to as upscale southern dining, this was the most expensive restaurant we dined in. I started with the Peach Punch cocktail which was delicious and gave me the slightest buzz. Then I moved on to the peach fritters as an appetizer which tasted similar to a funnel cake with a unique cream cheese mouss. For brunch, I’m typically a french toast kind of girl, but I wasn’t in the mood for sweet so I went with the shellfish over grits for my meal. Finally, I had the lemon bar for dessert that was tasty but fairly rich so I couldn’t eat very much of it. I made a reservation so we were able to walk in, be seated immediately and have all of the courses in exactly an hour. Overall it was good dining experience that i’d recommend.
4. Nigel’s Good Food (Lunch & Dinner)
3760 Ashley Phosphate Rd, North Charleston, SC 29418
Another black owned restaurant, Nigel’s has a pretty extensive selection of soul food that was decent. My favorite items were the Thelma’s Lemon Sweet Tea and Fruit Punch Kool Aid; yes, I had both.
5. Gillie’s Seafood (Lunch & Dinner)
805 Folly Rd, Charleston, SC 29412
From the website pictures, I was most excited to visit Gillie’s Seafood and I was not disappointed. This was the best soul food I had while in Charleston. I ordered the pick two platter with fried catfish and shrimp and fries and hush puppies as my side. Everything was fried and seasoned to perfection with good portion size. My favorite drink is an Arnold Palmer, which I would recommend here a thousand times. If you don’t go anywhere else for soul food, Gillie’s is a must.
6. Park Circle Creamery (Dessert)
1069 E Montague Ave, North Charleston, SC 29405
Park Circle Creamery is an adorable black owned ice cream shop that I wish I had gone to more than once because there were several flavors that I wanted to try like the Cherry Dream and the Lemon Crunch. Blueberry Cheesecake is the flavor I ended up choosing; I had two scoops and it was incredible.
