The Crossing
For a city built on a peninsula, Charleston has spent an awfully long time perfecting fine dining with its back to the harbor. The Crossing, a 200-seat, Mediterranean restaurant anchoring the new Cooper hotel, corrects that posture. Up on the second floor, it’s teak underfoot, nickel at every joint, and a lacquered ceiling reflecting the blue water beyond—think Ralph Lauren yacht crossed with a Restoration Hardware showroom. The room sings, and golden hour views over the Cooper River provide a resplendent chorus.
Any visit should begin at the bar, where beverage director Cameron Nadler, late of New York’s Polo Bar, pours a full page of martinis. The Far East is a sleeper: junmai sake softens the vodka into something almost floral. The Santorini Sunset—featuring ouzo cut with watermelon and lemon—captures a Cyclades summer in a coupe. Note, too, the multiple Assyrtiko wines by the glass, lest one question the commitment to Aegean taste.
More consequential is what arrives on the plate. Executive chef Nick Dugan, who also runs Sorelle on Broad Street, commits to the eastern Mediterranean without hedging. A trio of spreads comes alongside a fully inflated pita just pulled from the oven: silky hummus, barrel-aged feta htipiti with a mild chile hum, and black tahini baba ganoush sweetened with Medjool dates. The young rabbit mantı—thimble-size dumplings with lemon yogurt and brown butter, finished with an Aleppo-walnut crunch—is worth returning for alone. And the whole grilled branzino—wheeled over on a guéridon cart, introduced by origin, then filleted tableside—is the kind of dining-room theater Charleston abandoned a generation ago. A dessert of house-made Greek yogurt comes topped with rose honey and fruit. It needs nothing more…