Perhaps You Would Like to Read a Restaurant Review Today?

I've wanted to share this news for a while, but we've been keeping it under wraps since there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip—and, when I'm eating, twixt the fork and the shirt.

But it's finally official, and I'm excited to announce that I have signed on with the Post & Courier here in Charleston as the paper's new Restaurant Critic. My first review posted online this week and ran in the print edition’s Wednesday food section. (Remember good old print newspapers?)

First out of the gate is a stylish new French restaurant at the corner of Broad and East Bay called Brasserie la Banque, the latest opening from the same Indigo Road restaurant group behind Oak Steakhouse, O-ku Sushi, and Indaco.

For me it's actually a return to restaurant reviewing, since I was the resident critic for the Charleston City Paper for many years before turning more toward barbecue and culinary history. It's definitely good to be back in the saddle. I’ve always found restaurant reviews to be perhaps the hardest and slowest pieces to write—like chiseling a statue out of granite. But they’re also among the most rewarding, for they help me get out and dive deep into the city’s evolving dining scene, connecting the dots into patterns and keeping abreast of new developments.

I actually started talking with the Post & Courier's editors last summer about coming onboard to write reviews, which the newspaper had stopped running in the wake of Covid. But the timing just didn't feel right, as restaurants here in Charleston were dealing with the impact of the Delta variant surge . . . then reeling from staffing challenges . . . and then from the impact of the Omicron variant, which only heightened the staffing challenges.

The picture looks quite different now, and I must say that, as a diner, at least, it's starting to feel a lot more normal sitting in a fancy dining room than it did just a few months ago. Restaurants are forging ahead, and I'm looking forward to coming along for the ride and see where it takes us. I’m also excited to dive back deep into the Charleston restaurant scene, which has change so much in the past two years that I almost don’t recognize it.

Now I have to head out and got shopping for a new, larger belt, for there’s lots of good eating ahead.