This South Carolina restaurant was named one of the best in US. What’s on the menu?
A South Carolina restaurant serves regional classics — and was named one of the nation’s best places to eat.
Lowland in Charleston ranks No. 4 on a list of top restaurants from Food & Wine magazine. But the praise for the Holy City’s dining scene didn’t end there.
Charleston also earned the No. 6 spot on a separate list of the best U.S. cities for food and drink, according to results published Wednesday, April 2.
To create the lists, Food & Wine magazine said it conducted an online poll of more than 400 experts, including chefs and travel writers based around the world. Magazine editors worked with a global advisory board to determine top-notch food destinations in the United States and beyond.
What makes the SC restaurant rank high?
In the resulting Global Tastemakers Awards, Lowland was the only South Carolina restaurant to win. Food & Wine said the Charleston dining spot started as an “ode to Lowcountry cooking.”
“The restaurant climbs two stories worth of dreamy interiors, filled with warm brick, handsome fireplaces, patterned wallpaper, and a mossy mural that crawls the walls,” the restaurant wrote in its report. “You can expect refined Southern comforts, from local oysters to farmer cheese biscuits to a thick tavern burger.”
Also on the menu are pork schnitzel, apple hand pies and other comfort food dishes.
The restaurant is part of The Pinch hotel, which is located “down a cobblestone alley” near the popular King Street shopping district. The hotel, which officially opened in 2023, ranked among the world’s best new places to stay last year, McClatchy News reported.
On the more recent lists, Charleston also made its mark. The city was named one of the nation’s top food and drink destinations, and its spot in the rankings proves “culinary excellence extends beyond bigger metropolises,” Food & Wine wrote in a news release.
“Restaurants in Charleston could easily just lean on the port city’s natural beauty and famously warm hospitality,” the magazine wrote. “But diners can expect so much more, like the freshest local seafood, a robust cocktail culture, and plenty of Lowcountry cuisine.”
Nationwide, Food & Wine said the best place to eat was Burdell’s, a soul food restaurant in Oakland, California. Meanwhile, the top-ranked city for food and drink was New York.
The top 15 U.S. restaurants were chosen from 135 nominees, and the top 10 cities were chosen from 28 nominees. The magazine’s poll was conducted over the course of two months in the fall, a spokesperson told McClatchy News via email.
This story was originally published April 2, 2025 at 10:00 AM with the headline "This South Carolina restaurant was named one of the best in US. What’s on the menu?."
