Michelin Stars and Culinary Awards: South Carolina Finding Its Place in the Destination Dining Conversation

South Carolina has always been known for down-home Southern cooking, seafood dishes like the Lowcountry boil, and of course, the many styles of pork barbecue to be found here.

But the Palmetto State wasn’t the first place that sprang to mind when the phrase “fine dining” was mentioned.

In recent years, however, South Carolina has increasingly been part of the conversation around creative, high-end cuisine.

The prestigious James Beard Foundation has taken notice, spotlighting many restaurants  in the state for its Restaurant and Chef Awards in the past several years. In 2026, several restaurants were James Beard Award nominees or finalists, including Weltons Tiny Bakeshop in Charleston, nominated for Outstanding Bakery; Merci, also in Charleston, a nominee in the Best New Restaurant category; and Joe Cash of Scoundrel in Greenville, nominated for Best Chef, Southeast.

The winner in Best Chef, Southeast, category, Taylor Montgomery of Montgomery Sky Farms in Leicester, North Carolina, also has South Carolina connections. He was the longtime chef at Urban Wren in Greenville, which closed last year.

In 2024, Columbia’s Lula Drake Wine Parlour won the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages.

And in late 2025, four South Carolina restaurants earned Michelin stars in the dining guide’s first-ever recognition of restaurants in the Palmetto State.

Scoundrel in Greenville, and three Charleston restaurants – Vern’s, Wild Common, and Malagon Mercado Y Taperia – each received one star, while several other eateries around the state were singled out for the Bib Gourmand or Michelin Recommended designations.

Bib Gourmand awards are given to restaurants that serve “high-quality food at a reasonable, approachable price,” according to the Michelin Guide. This year, that included Charleston’s Leon’s Oyster Shop and Lewis Barbecue.

And Michelin Recommended restaurants are recognized for “serving above-average, well-cooked food with quality ingredients, even though it has not earned a star or a Bib Gourmand award,” the Michelin Guide says.

As James London, chef/owner of the James Beard-nominated Charleston restaurant Chubby Fish, sees it, the seeds for South Carolina’s emergence as a dining destination were sown in the early 2000s by chefs like Mike Lata of FIG and Sean Brock of McCrady’s and Husk.

“The road was paved before Chubby Fish opened” in 2018, London said, chatting at the restaurant  before service one recent afternoon. “Charleston, in particular, has always had a very deep appreciation of the culinary arts. It’s been a big part of our cuisine, our culture for the longest time. It took chefs before me to really bring that out.”

Cash said he thinks it’s a combination of experienced, creative chefs and guests who are excited to support fine dining restaurants.

“I think there’s tons of chefs like me who have gone out and experienced working in these great restaurants and dining in all these places around the world,” he said. “You start to form your own opinions and thoughts, and there’s more opportunity to elevate what you want to say and what you’ve learned these days than you did before. Because before, the diners were in the larger cities, and now dining out has become a normal, fun activity.”

That shift may be one of the biggest reasons South Carolina’s dining scene is flourishing. Ambitious chefs no longer have to build careers exclusively in traditional culinary capitals such as New York, Chicago, or San Francisco. At the same time, diners in smaller cities have become more adventurous, more educated about high-end cuisine, and more willing to support chef-driven restaurants offering the kind of ambitious cooking once associated primarily with larger metropolitan areas.

South Carolina is benefiting from both sides of that equation: chefs are bringing experience gained at acclaimed restaurants around the world back to the state, while a growing audience is willing to support what they create.

The state’s emergence on the dining scene “shows the expansion of culinary arts in our country,” said Bethany Heinze, co-owner and general manager of the Michelin-starred Vern’s in Charleston.

One thing these restaurants have in common – beyond high-quality food presented in interesting, aesthetically pleasing ways – is that most are small, intimate rooms. Merci in Charleston, for example, seats 24, although the capacity expanded a bit this year with the opening of a private dining room.

Chubby Fish, located in a historic home once owned by a whaler who came to the Lowcountry from Connecticut after the Civil War, seats 40 and doesn’t accept reservations.

The space may be small, but London has a very specific vibe he aims to create in the restaurant.

“We write a play for every space that we create, and that keeps us on track,” London said. “It gives the space an identity and a sense of genuineness that we would not get if we were just kind of designing a space willy-nilly. … We have to follow that storyline, and everything feels connected and it feels authentic.”

Vern’s, which seats about 50, tries to cultivate a “lively” vibe. “The food is super high quality, and the space is convivial,” Heinze said. “That combo is the secret sauce.”

Diners who visit these spaces can expect something creative each night, and a menu that’s rarely identical from one week to the next. The chefs prioritize using locally or regionally sourced ingredients.

At Merci, the menu is kept small and manageable. The kitchen stove has no hood, meaning the team can’t cook with an open flame, which limits the types of dishes that can be served, said Michael Zentner, co-owner and chef.

One staple is beef Wellington, and the regularly changing menu always includes a seafood dish and a chicken entrée. For dessert, there’s chocolate mousse, ice cream, and a fruit-based item. But most of the vegetable-based dishes change frequently, Zentner said.

For London, his nightly menu is connected to what local products he’s able to source in a given week. For example, if a seafood purveyor brings in 15 triggerfish, London will build his menu around that item. And then farmers will bring in their produce, which determines the vegetables that accompany the fish.

“It forces us to be creative,” London said.

OAK Prime in Myrtle Beach was named a Michelin Recommended Restaurant this year, four years after opening, and Chef Jerrett King describes himself as a mostly self-taught chef who’s always looking to put his own stamp on everything the restaurant serves.

OAK Prime – the OAK stands for “one of a kind” – has a rotating menu that includes staples such as a Wagyu ribeye with black truffle butter and biscuits with blueberry lavender jam. 

“We try to put our own twist on everything,” King said.

The chefs all say that the recognition has been nice, especially for their hard-working team members, but that they aren’t doing it for the accolades.

“None of us expected this,” said King, pointing out that the Grand Strand is more known for all-you-can-eat crab legs than haute cuisine.

But since OAK Prime’s inclusion in the Michelin Guide, “business has doubled. We’re busy every night.”

Zentner said the James Beard recognition was exciting, especially because it came so soon after the restaurant opened. He took his whole team – 16 people – to the awards ceremony in Chicago back in June, and it was a thrilling and memorable experience, he said.

“The coolest thing was just looking at all the other restaurants that were nominated, just how cool they were. … I was not really disappointed that we didn’t win. I’ve been saying it’s kind of like getting the silver medal at the Olympics. It was such an amazing accomplishment just to get there,” Zentner said.

Scoundrel opened in 2022 in downtown Greenville, and the journey to that Michelin star wasn’t easy. There was pushback from some diners who thought the menu items were too expensive, and “everybody just seemed prepared to dislike it up front,” said Cash, a Greenville native whose career has included stints at highly acclaimed restaurants Per Se in New York and Noma in Copenhagen.

There were times during the first year when he wondered whether the restaurant would make it to year two.

But Cash and his staff “stuck to our guns and didn’t change a thing.”

Then Esquire spotlighted Scoundrel in its Best New Restaurants feature, which was a turning point. “It took this national article for local people to take us seriously,” he said.

And in 2024, Scoundrel was a semifinalist for Best New Restaurant in the James Beard Foundation Restaurant and Chef Awards.

London said that the accolades for Chubby Fish, which include a spot on the 50 Best Restaurants in North America list earlier this year, are nice for the team, but he’s more interested in seeing the delight on the faces of diners.

“We get to give people the meal of their lives every single night, and that’s so powerful,” he said.

And for Cash, the rationale is just as simple: “We’re not trying to change the world, we’re just trying to make consistent, perfect, beautiful food as best we can.”