Carolina Gold rice cooked with field peas (or black-eyed peas), bacon and onion. The New Year's Day dish for luck, eaten year-round in Charleston.
Where to eat it: 4 restaurants across 1 city.
Hoppin' John is a Gullah-Geechee staple of West African origin, brought to the Sea Islands and Carolina rice plantations through the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The earliest printed recipe appears in Sarah Rutledge's 1847 Charleston cookbook The Carolina Housewife. Traditional versions use Sea Island red peas or field peas with Carolina Gold rice, slow-cooked with smoked ham hock. The plate is eaten on New Year's Day across the South for prosperity, paired with collards (for money) and cornbread. Glenn Roberts at Anson Mills in Columbia has spent thirty years restoring heirloom Carolina Gold rice; that rice now anchors versions at Husk and FIG.
Tip from the editors. If you can find Carolina Gold rice from Anson Mills, use it. The grain holds its shape and absorbs the pot liquor differently to commodity long-grain.
This is the TableJourney editorial recipe, modelled on the canonical bistro / counter version. The first place to try the dish in its city of origin is below.
Husk in Charleston opened in 2010 under Sean Brock and rebuilt Southern fine dining on heritage grains and hyper-local produce. Anson Mills rice, Sea Island peas, wood-fired meats.
Order: The cast-iron cornbread, plus whatever the wood grill is running.
Tip: Book on the website. Bar seats walk-in at 17:00 and serve the full menu.
Bertha's Kitchen on Meeting Street Road in North Charleston runs Albertha Grant's soul food cafeteria from 1979. Fried chicken, okra soup, red rice; the Grant family at the steam table.
Order: Fried chicken, okra soup, red rice, lima beans with smoked turkey neck
Why locals love it: A North Charleston cafeteria steam table that has run since 1979 and won James Beard's America's Classics in 2017. Tourist guides barely list it.
Tip: Lunch only Mon-Sat, cash and card. Arrive before 13:00 weekdays or the fried chicken is gone.
Hannibal's Kitchen has fed the Eastside of Charleston soul food since 1985. Lunches under $15 include crab rice, smothered pork chops, fried whiting and rice with two sides.
Try: Crab rice, smothered pork chop, fried whiting, lima beans
Tip: Counter order, dining-room seat. Lunch beats dinner; the line peaks 12:30 to 13:30 weekdays.
Slightly North of Broad in Charleston has run on East Bay Street since 1993. Frank Lee's reworked shrimp and grits became the canonical restaurant version of the Lowcountry plate.
Signature: Shrimp and grits, Maverick Grits with sausage
Order: The shrimp and grits with stone-ground grits and house kielbasa, on the menu since the 90s.
Tip: Brunch and lunch are easier seats than dinner. Bar seats are walk-in only.
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