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Venture back in time and off the beaten path for an authentic taste of the Southern coast’s culinary heritage.
In 2021, I spent Thanksgiving on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, a Gullah-Geechee community accessible only by ferry. There are only a couple restaurants on the island, and they were closed for the holiday anyway, but a local cooked us a feast. He delivered tray after tray of food — mac and cheese, green beans, turkey — but apologized for a dish that was missing. His family had only caught one raccoon, he said, and had kept it for their own table.
The South’s cuisine was shaped by need: The Gullah people cooked what was at hand, often in a single pot, resulting in traditional dishes like lowcountry boil. Outsiders lampoon Southern cuisine for being drenched in butter, often not realizing that the food became fatty to sustain laborers who simply couldn’t get enough calories to fuel backbreaking work in the fields and, later, in factories.
South Carolina and Georgia’s rocky upland mountains and piedmont give way to the soft, sandy coastal plain below the fall line known as the lowcountry. Tidal creeks snake through the marshy low-lying terrain, and Spanish moss hangs languidly from expansive oaks. It’s an area marked by sultry heat and its proximity to the sea, and its culture has been strongly influenced by the Gullah-Geechee people, descendants of enslaved West and Central Africans who labored on rice and cotton plantations along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and north Florida.
The coast’s syncretic culture and bountiful seafood has given birth to a distinct culinary tradition — Southern, with the salty tang of the Atlantic. To get a real taste of the lowcountry, eat widely and deeply: Visit farmers markets, shuck oysters, try Carolina gold rice and Frogmore stew, sample tasting menus from the region’s most ambitious chefs, but don’t discount the joy of pulling off Highway 17 for country-fried steak at an 80-year-old diner. And while the local cuisine has traditionally leaned heavily on meat and dairy, the New South offers plenty of plant-forward and planet-friendly options, too. Beyond those ever-present sustainable dining options, southern cuisine — especially that of the Gullah-Geechee — has long focused on making much from little, wasting not even a single husk of rice (Tidewater Grain Company uses the husks as soil amendments), and using whatever’s available to make delicious one-pot meals.
This guide, which covers the coast from Charleston, South Carolina, to the Florida border, is by no means comprehensive (no raccoon). Consider it a jumping-off point, a greeting, an invitation to venture back in time and off the beaten path. The South rewards adventuresome eaters.
Charleston, South Carolina
This picturesque port city is a culinary darling. This year, the James Beard Foundation named eight local chefs and restaurants as semifinalists for its annual awards, and even the most discerning visitor could eat well for weeks. At Bintü Atelier, on Line Street on the East Side, Chef Bintou N’daw (named one of the Southeast’s best new chefs) serves food from her native Senegal culture, that like the Gullah-Geechee cuisine that was inspired by African food, draws heavily on local vegetables like okra, heritage grains, and seafood.
Across the Stono River, on Johns Island, Stono Farm Market sells lowcountry produce and local honey, jellies, relishes, butter, and more. The adjoining Tomato Shed Cafe serves hearty lunches and suppers, including a Wadmalaw Island BBQ Plate with a local mustard-based sauce. The dish comes with two sides; make one of them tomato pie. Or, for a plant-based option, order a veggie plate and pick from four options: sweet potato casserole, Marsh Hen Mill yellow grits, honey ginger beets, or roasted garlic butter broccolini.
If you need a respite from rich Southern classics, Huriyali, with locations downtown and on James Island, serves smoothies, açaí bowls, and vegan sandwiches and grain bowls. Basic Kitchen’s brunch, lunch, and dinner menus feature refined New American dishes, with plenty of vegan options, in a bright airy dining room.
Edisto Island, South Carolina
Find lowcountry boil, fried green tomatoes, and pimento cheese at Roxbury Mercantile, a casual restaurant and market in Meggett, on the way to Edisto Island. The list of sides is a lineup of lowcountry classics, including Edisto Island collards, Marsh Hen Mill grits, red rice, and Sea Island red peas. On Edisto, local standby Whaley’s turns out deep-fried flounder, shrimp, and oysters in humble surrounds — the perfect stop before or after sunset on the beach.
Detour: Botany Bay, South Carolina
The trails at this coastal wildlife refuge, a short drive from Edisto Beach, offer sweeping vistas of the lowcountry’s characteristic marshes and tidal creeks. Look for herons and egrets hidden in the grass, and ramble through the gnarled, bone-white remnants of oaks at Boneyard Beach, which is only accessible at low tide. There’s no fee to enter the park, but note that it’s closed on Tuesdays.
Carolina Gold Rice: Restoring Habitat and Heritage
Carolina gold rice was at one time the most popular rice variety grown in the United States, and it was exported as far as Asia. Tended by enslaved West Africans, rice plantations were among the lowcountry’s economic mainstays, and the rice, with its hazelnut notes and surprisingly smooth mouthfeel, was a culinary staple. The harvesting machinery that replaced the South’s laborers was too heavy for Carolina’s rice fields; rice production shifted elsewhere and Carolina gold fell out of favor.
Now, South Carolina companies like Rollen’s RAW Grains, based in Hardeeville, and Columbia-based Anson Mills are stewarding a rice renaissance. Marion “Rollen” Chalmers took a roundabout route to rice farming; the one-time millwright and electrical supplier developed a passion for farming heritage grains. When he began growing Carolina gold rice on Daufuskie Island, it was the first time the local variety had been grown there in over a century. In a 2020 interview with Lela Nargi at the website Civil Eats, Chalmers spoke about adapting an heirloom rice to withstand climate change and impacts such as encroaching saltwater and invasive weeds.
“Though the generations-deep Gullah tradition of growing rice had faded by the time Chalmers was growing up,” Nargi wrote, “he tapped into his family’s experience later in life. Chalmers is now what Glenn Roberts, founder of Anson Mills, calls a ‘quiet force’ behind the food revival of the Sea Islands, and in particular, the renewed interest in heirloom rices. Though his face and name are largely absent from documentaries about the subject, Chalmers is responsible for developing many acres of the grain” in the lowcountry. “All along the way, he’s been restoring habitat and heritage.”
“We’re losing a lot of land in this area,” Chalmers told Nargi. “You got development going on: apartments, stores, houses being built. Wild quails are disappearing almost totally here in the South, but when I was a young kid, quails were everywhere. On my property and for my customers, I plant oaks and other trees that will produce seed and cover for birds. You bring different kinds of birds to hang out on the marshes when you plant rice on these traditional fields; they come in to get crawfish when you take the water off them.
“A little bit of work with the right knowledge, and you can get these lands back up and running.”
The aromatic Carolina gold is increasingly available in stores and on menus, including at many of the restaurants featured here.
If you include Brunswick, Georgia, in your travels (see below), check out the rice history at the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation.
Beaufort, South Carolina
On Saturday mornings, rain or shine, dozens of vendors hawk local produce, seafood, meat, flowers, and more at the Port Royal Farmers Market, about 10 minutes south of Beaufort. Look for Captain John Payne, who has more than four decades of shrimping experience, and his preservative-free catch; Hank’s Lowcountry she-crab soup and crab cakes; and boiled peanuts, a can’t-miss Southern snack. (“Boiled peanuts may be the murkiest Southern delicacy,” Southern humorist Roy Blount Jr. has written. “People who didn’t grow up with boiled peanuts see them simmering in that dark brine in that black pot tended by that sad-eyed man on the side of the road, and the voice of reason whispers, ‘What kind of people boil nuts?’”)
At the market, Rollen’s sells Gullah staples like buckwheat flour, Carolina gold rice, and rice grits (see a link to recipes at the end of this story). If you miss him at the farmers market, stop by his brick-and-mortar location in Hardeeville, about 40 minutes southwest.
The coast’s syncretic culture and bountiful seafood has given birth to a distinct culinary tradition — Southern, with the salty tang of the Atlantic.
Blacksheep is a tiny wine shop and restaurant with a thoughtful lunch menu of sandwiches, like hummus, merguez, and mortadella, and small plates, like smoked trout toast and beet salad. The shop hosts an approachable wine club and tastings on Tuesday nights. Herban Market and Cafe offers coffee and light bites with vegan options, or get comfortable in Old Bull Tavern’s brick-lined dining room for a heartier meal. Leave room for lowcountry strawberry shortcake, served on homemade brown butter cornbread.
Hilton Head Island and Bluffton, South Carolina
Ọkàn’s Chef Bernard Bennett sources local produce and seafood to create West African and Caribbean dishes that highlight the deep relationship between the culinary heritage of West Africa and the lowcountry. Taste the resonance in Bennett’s African gumbo, beef mafe (West African peanut stew), coco bread, and island collards.
Nearby FARM designs its menus, including a vegetarian dinner menu, around seasonal lowcountry produce. Expect consistently well-prepared clams, oysters, and shrimp, or venture beyond the lowcountry with the prix fixe Italian tasting menu.
Environmental Heroes: Tybee Oyster Company’s Salt Bomb Oysters
Oysters are among the coast’s most vital workhorses, filtering the billions of gallons of seawater that rush in and out of tidal creeks every day. (An individual oyster can filter as much as 50 gallons a day!) These environmental heroes also sequester carbon and prevent harmful algal blooms by absorbing excess nitrogen and phosphorus, while their colonies create habitat and protect coastlines from storm surges.
They’re also delicious, and there may be no better way to taste the lowcountry. Wild-harvested oysters have been a staple source of protein along the coast since before Europeans settled here, but in the South, they’ve rarely been cultivated. In 2019, the Georgia legislature passed a bill that paved the way for oyster cultivation, and Perry and Lisa Solomon founded Tybee Oyster Company on Tybee Island, near Savannah. Grown in cages where the Bull River meets the Atlantic, the Solomons’ oysters are meticulously raised for shape and flavor, which Julie Qiu, an oyster educator, has described as having “grassy and anise notes with a light, earthy finish.” Find the Salt Bombs at The Laundry Diner or, closer to the source, Sea Wolf, on Tybee Island.
Savannah, Georgia
In November 2025, Dawn Anderson opened Coastal Table and Tales, a cookbook store that hosts cooking classes, workshops, and cookbook and baking clubs. The store is the result of a sudden career pivot; Anderson and her husband, Carl, had served with USAID for more than 30 years when the Trump administration essentially closed the foreign-aid agency. She brings a well-traveled palate to Savannah, where, she explains, she aims to showcase “where food comes from.” She doesn’t mean where it literally comes from, like regional farms or the nearby Forsyth Farmers Market, but the deep roots of culinary heritages around the world.
In the Hostess City, Anderson recommends Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room, a legendary family-style restaurant with origins as a boarding house. (Plan ahead: The restaurant only accepts cash or checks, and there’s no way to avoid a wait. Making friends in line under the moss-draped oaks is as much a part of the experience as making friends over fried chicken at the restaurant’s tables for 10.) For consistent quality, she points to wine bar Late Air, which pours natural wines and serves small snacks and shareable plates inspired by what’s fresh and in season; also check out pasta bar Lucia, and FARM sister restaurant Common Thread, housed in an elegant midtown mansion. Ask for the vegetarian menu for seasonal plant-based mains that show as much care and craft as the meat entrées.
In 2014, Chef Mashama Bailey, who spent part of her childhood in Savannah, partnered with John O. Morisano to open The Grey in a restored 1938 Greyhound bus station. Bailey showcases elevated heritage foods from her childhood — hoe cakes, potlikker, field peas — on rotating seasonal menus.
What’s potlikker you ask? Southern cooks are known for not wanting to waste a thing. “Pot liquor” is what’s left in the pot after boiling leafy greens like collards, turnip, or mustard greens (some add meat for flavor). Instead of tossing it once the greens are done, cooks serve it warm to drink or use it for a base for soups and gravies, or for dipping cornbread in.
Detour: Pin Point Heritage Museum
After the Civil War, formerly enslaved Gullah-Geechee people were granted land along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and north Florida, but developer pressure and tax increases served to claw back much of the valuable waterfront property. Pin Point, founded east of Savannah in the 1890s, was — and remains — an exception. Learn about Gullah-Geechee culture and history at this small, well-designed museum on the site of the former A.S. Varn & Son Oyster and Crab Factory. Visit the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor website for events and other historical sites throughout the lowcountry.
It’s an area marked by sultry heat and its proximity to the sea, and its culture has been strongly influenced by the Gullah-Geechee people, descendants of enslaved West and Central Africans who labored on rice and cotton plantations along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and north Florida.
Harris Neck, Georgia
Visiting the Old School Diner is an experience unto itself, from the moment you pull into the patchwork-carpet parking lot, lined with toilet bowls. The facade is decorated with cast-iron cookware, license plates, and pairs of crutches. Inside, Chef Jerome Brown, who’s cooked for celebrities and presidents, will greet you with, “You’ve had the rest. Now have the BEST.” Plunge into the famous Wheelchair Platter. “It will astound you!!!” the menu boasts. “What’s on it? you ask. Ben Affleck says, Why ask? Trust your chef!!!” Other dishes include catfish nuggets, a gator tail dinner, fried big shrimp, and fried bigger shrimp. The diner no longer serves beer or wine, but Chef Jerome invites you to bring your own.
St. Simons Island, Georgia
In The Elephant in the Room, St. Simons–native Tommy Tomlinson recounts his struggle with obesity at 460 pounds and examines his relationship with food — particularly the Southern food he was raised on. “There has never been better food created anywhere than the food of the American South,” he writes. “There has never been any food that will make you fatter.”
He is, as New York Times book critic Dwight Garner described him, “an ardent scholar of the glories of the South’s vernacular cuisine: fried chicken, biscuits, barbecue, catfish browned in flour and bacon grease, and ‘tea so sweet it could hold its shape without a cup.’” Tomlinson also describes how rich Southern cuisine was developed to fuel the region’s backbreaking farm and factory labor.
In his hometown, Tomlinson recommends Southern Soul BBQ, in a former gas station. “They have all the classics,” he says, “plus specials like a fish dip that I wish could be delivered to my house every day.” Despite a host of new seafood spots, Tomlinson sticks to the Crab Trap, “where the fries are battered, and everything is served on wooden plates that look like the paneling in a ’70s living room.”
Brunswick, Georgia
Make reservations for a spot in the small dining room at Reid’s Apothecary, which serves tasteful New South dishes like shrimp and grits, lowcountry bouillabaisse, and baked lobster mac and cheese. Sunday dinners feature a choice of protein — think catfish, meatloaf, and country-fried steak—three or five Southern sides, and dessert. (Stay true to the South with banana pudding or Key lime pie.)
No reservations needed at Willie’s Wee-Nee Wagon, a counter-service joint whose roof is adorned with a photo of Willie himself. Whether you get a hot dog (or two or three) or the iconic fried pork chop sandwich, don’t forget a sweet tea. Vegans and vegetarians will be happier at Sea Salt Healthy Kitchen, an East Coast cafe with West Coast energy. On the menu, mango-quinoa ceviche and Mediterranean bruschetta sit comfortably alongside chipotle steak wraps and keto bowls.
Farmers Markets
Find local vegetables, mushrooms, seafood, farm-raised chicken, condiments, and prepared foods like hummus and pastries at these popular markets. Many of the food-product vendors offer online ordering if you can’t get there in person.
- Charleston Farmers Market, Saturdays, 8 a.m.–2 p.m.
- West Ashley Farmers Market, Wednesdays, 3–7 p.m.
- Port Royal Farmers Market, Saturdays, 9 a.m.–12 p.m.
- Bluffton Farmers Market, Thursdays, 12–4 p.m.
- Forsyth Farmers Market, Saturdays, 9 a.m.–1 p.m.
Try This: Lowcountry Cuisine at Home
This range of lowcountry cookbooks makes it easy to try lowcountry flavors without leaving home.
- The Way Home: A Celebration of Sea Islands Food and Family With Over 100 Recipes, Kardea Brown
- Bress ’n’ Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes From a Sixth-Generation Farmer, Matthew Raiford with Amy Paige Condon
- Heritage, Sean Brock
- The Saltwater Table: Recipes From the Coastal South, Whitney Otawka (Dawn Anderson recommends her Oyster and Clam Chowder, and her Heirloom Corn Polenta.)
- Roots, Heart, Soul: The Story, Celebration, and Recipes of Afro Cuisine in America, Todd Richards with Amy Paige Condon. (Dawn says his She Crab Soup With Smoked Paprika Oil and Cornmeal-Crusted Okra are outstanding.)
Available to order online:
Visit the Lowcountry on a Bluedot Living Trip
Join us in May for an adventure on Little St. Simon’s Island. The island offers an immersive experience in true coastal ecology and unhurried beauty; the lodge is the only structure on the island. Explore the marshes and waterways with naturalists, enjoy dinner at the lodge, and discover nocturnal wildlife.
Try This: Lowcountry Boil
Lowcountry boil is a paragon of the Gullah people’s one-pot tradition. A classic South Carolina boil will include shrimp (see our shrimp guide below), red potatoes, yellow corn, andouille sausage (pescatarians leave the sausage out), and a heap of Old Bay, but debates still rage over whether other ingredients — crab, onion, garlic — have a place in the pot.
In South Carolina, lowcountry boil is sometimes called Frogmore stew, a name coined in the 1960s by shrimper Richard Gay, who hailed from Frogmore, a community on St. Helena Island. (Look out for Gay Fish Company, which has operated on St. Helena for 77 years, next time you watch Forrest Gump!)
Emily Meggett, author of the cookbook Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes From the Matriarch of Edisto Island says, “Let the vegetables, aromatics, and seasoning do the talking, and the rest of the stew listens. … Get a big group of your closest family members together, and give this recipe a try on a late-summer night. It’s the perfect time to eat with your hands and get a stomach full.”
Print
RECIPE: Lowcountry Boil
- Yield: Serves 12 1x
Ingredients
- 4 lbs small red potatoes
- 5 qts water
- 1 3-oz bag of crab boil seasoning
- 4 Tbsps Old Bay seasoning
- 2 lbs of kielbasa or hot smoked link sausage, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 6 ears of corn, halved
- 4 lbs large fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined (optional)
- Cocktail sauce
Instructions
- Add potatoes to a large pot, and then add the water and seasonings. Cover the pot and heat to a rolling boil. Cook for 5 minutes.
- Add the sausage and corn, and return to a boil. Cook for 10 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.
- Add shrimp and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, or until shrimp turn pink. Drain well and dump the pot onto a newspaper-covered picnic table.
Notes
Make sure that all the shrimp you use is sustainably caught. From North Carolina to the Florida Keys, you can check the “Good Catch Partner” listings to see what’s local and what’s sustainable. Nationally, take a look at the Local Catch Network to find local seafood.
So, Should We Be Eating Shrimp?
For years, shrimping (therefore, shrimps) has had a (well-earned) reputation as an environmental villain. Shrimp operations routinely destroy mangrove forests and have had high rates of bycatch (that is, pulling up other creatures not intended for consumption). For more than 20 years, shrimpers have been using Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) to allow sea turtles to escape the trawl nets. According to Sea Turtle Conservancy, “It appears that indigenous knowledge and traditional field biology played a part in TED development. According to one source, it was a collaboration between a biologist at Cumberland National Seashore near the Georgia–Florida Border and a legendary netmaker from Nassau County, Florida, that yielded the refinements to the TED design that accommodated the sea turtle’s innate biological instinct to push up from the net to escape. … NOAA conferred its 2000 ‘Environmental Hero’ award on third-generation netmaker Billy Burbank.”
While TEDs have now been widely adopted by shrimpers in the Gulf and the lowcountry and are credited with having reduced sea turtle bycatch by more than 95%, the Monterey Seafood Watch still advises buying shrimp that has been harvested in the U.S., and buying only shrimp that has been green- or yellow-rated. Most shrimp (87%) caught from North Carolina to Texas are yellow-rated. Monterey has a sustainable shrimp guide here.
Then, there’s the substitutions: For many low-country dishes, such as Frogmore stew, pescatarians can substitute the shrimp for crab legs, lobster tails, mussels, or a firm white fish such as cod. Vegans or vegetarians can use king oyster mushroom stems, hearts of palm, or firm tofu.
