- Charleston’s dining scene features a variety of restaurants, from iconic seafood spots to hidden gems and newer establishments.
With family in town for the long Labor Day weekend, I revisited a handful of the Charleston restaurants I’ve unintentionally neglected over the past year.
One meal took place at Lowland, where the 2025 departure of Jason Stanhope left the kitchen in the very capable hands of chef Matthew Dion, who previously cooked at FIG and The Ordinary. I’ll put his pork schnitzel, covered in juicy sliced tomatoes and drizzled with a cucumber-dill yogurt sauce, up against many of the entrees I sampled this summer.
Another day brought me to a slim two-story French restaurant down a side alley just off Coming Street.
Inside the calm, cozy dining room at Chez Nous, we shared braised-then-chilled octopus tucked inside a garden of lemony lettuce, leeks and capers; a refreshing salad of sweet watermelon cubes, heirloom cherry tomatoes, pine nuts, house-made croutons and nutty bits of Parmesan cheese; and trout bathed in brown butter…