Vintage Menu Monday: The Lorelei — Shem Creek Before It Was Shem Creek

Vintage menu cover for The Lorelei Sea Food Restaurant on Shem Creek featuring black and white shrimp boat rigging and nets.

Before the yachts and rooftop bars, before the boardwalks filled with visitors on summer evenings, Shem Creek was a working waterfront. At low tide, the smell of pluff mud hung over the marsh, mingling with salt, diesel, and the shrimp boats chugging home. Along that creek stood The Lorelei, a historic seafood restaurant whose menus …

Ghosts in the Brick: The 300-Year Culinary Soul of 10 Exchange St

Charleston is a city that remembers through its bones—and few places hold more gravity than 10 Exchange St. From a muscular 18th-century warehouse to the legendary Perdita’s, discover the 300-year evolution of the Holy City’s most storied culinary landmark.

Happy National Watermelon Day!

Long before I started the best food tour in Charleston I shared some insights in Mt, Pleasant magazine. In particular, amongst our lost flavors, I particularly relish sharing the story of the Lazarus-like resurrection of the Bradford Watermelon:(excerpt as originally published in Mt. Pleasant magazine, 7/2015) Nat Bradford’s in the process of moving his family back …

The Lost Recipe of William Deas

Chef William Deas, inventor of She Crab Soup and the REAL Rhett's Butler. Who Was William Deas? In Charleston, the story of Mr. William Deas and his invention of She Crab Soup is the legendary stuff of history and tour guide fake-lore. Most everyone knows or has heard the fabled account of how Mr. Deas, …