What's the food culture in Charleston?

Charleston eats early by Southern standards. Brunch runs 10am to 2pm on weekends, and the line outside Callie's Hot Little Biscuit on Upper King Street forms by 9:30 for a $4 buttermilk biscuit with country ham, warm enough that the butter pools on top. Dinner service starts at 5:30 and most kitchens close by 10. Friday and Saturday reservations at FIG on Meeting Street or The Ordinary on King typically fill 2 to 3 weeks ahead, but the bar at both serves the full menu on walk-in. Weeknights are looser. You can walk into Chez Nous on Payne Court, a 36-seat spot that changes its handwritten menu twice daily, on a Tuesday without planning.

The Lowcountry plate is rice-first, not bread-first, and the distinction matters. Husk on Queen Street makes its cornbread with heirloom Geechie Boy corn, stone-ground on Edisto Island about an hour south. At Slightly North of Broad on East Bay, the she-crab soup runs thick with blue crab roe and a float of dry sherry, $14 a bowl. 167 Raw, also on East Bay, serves oysters shucked from beds around Bulls Bay and the ACE Basin, $18 per half-dozen. Red rice, a Gullah-Geechee dish older than the Cajun rice cooking it likely influenced, appears on nearly every table as a side. Benne, a West African sesame variety with a nuttier flavor than standard sesame, turns up in thin wafers at Charleston City Market and in craft cocktails along Upper King.

The best soul food is not on the peninsula. Bertha's Kitchen sits on Meeting Street Road in North Charleston, about 15 minutes north of the historic district. The fried chicken comes out of a cast-iron skillet with skin that crackles when you pick it up, served with lima beans and cornbread for under $12. It closes when the food runs out, often by 2pm. For Lowcountry boil, you want a backyard oyster roast, not a restaurant. Shrimp, andouille, corn, and potatoes go into a pot of Old Bay-seasoned water, then get dumped onto newspaper. These gatherings happen October through March across James Island and West Ashley. Ask at any bar on Maybank Highway and someone will point you to one.

Charleston has two barbecue traditions sitting a mile apart. Rodney Scott's on King Street does whole-hog, pit-cooked over oak and pecan for 12 hours, mopped with thin vinegar-pepper sauce. The pulled pork sandwich runs $11. Lewis Barbecue on Nassau Street, opened by a Texas pitmaster in 2016, smokes brisket for 16 hours over white oak. Rodney Scott's is the Carolina tradition. Lewis is the transplant. Both are worth eating in the same afternoon. Skip the tourist-oriented spots near the City Market area. The Market itself sells sweetgrass baskets and pralines, not meals. Walk 4 blocks north up King and the food improves dramatically.