What we are
The whole building is arranged around a single hearth. Where you sit changes the evening more than the menu does.
01 — Twenty-eight seats
One seating from half past five. The kitchen is open to the room, so the fire is the light and the sound of the evening. Courses arrive when they are ready rather than on a clock.
02 — Walk in, stay late
Ten stools and four high tables, no reservations, open until one. A shorter menu off the same fire, oysters until they run out, and the best seat in the house for eating alone.
03 — Ten to sixteen
A separate room with its own hearth for groups of ten to sixteen. One menu for the table, chosen with you a week ahead, served family style down the middle.
From the pass
Photographed the day it went on. If a dish is gone by the time you visit, its replacement will be better.
$46
Carved at the table, the head kept back for whoever asks first.
Edisto, line-caught Tuesday
$34
Hard-charred, chilli and cane vinegar, eaten with your hands.
Bulls Bay
$15
Two hours in the coals under a salt crust, cracked open at the pass.
Rosebank Farms, Johns Island
$28
Cooked in fish stock, trout roe, brown butter.
Anson Mills
$12
Taken right to the edge of bitter, then pulled back with cream.
Wadmalaw Island honey
Opening
Dinner only, Tuesday through Saturday. The bar keeps its own hours and takes no reservations.
4 Harbourgate Wharf, Charleston, SC 29401
Open in maps| Monday | Closed | The kitchen rests |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | 17:30 – 23:00 | Bar until 1am |
| Wednesday | 17:30 – 23:00 | Bar until 1am |
| Thursday | 17:30 – 23:00 | Bar until 1am |
| Friday | 17:30 – 23:30 | Bar until 1am |
| Saturday | 17:00 – 23:30 | Two seatings |
| Sunday | Closed | Private events only |
The kitchen
A brigade of six. Nobody here is a name on the door who cooks somewhere else on Fridays.
Chef & Owner
Cooked in San Sebastián and Copenhagen, came home in 2017 to cook her grandmother’s fish over wood.
Head Chef
Runs the fire. Writes the menu each afternoon after the boats come in, usually about four hours before you eat it.
Pastry
Bakes the hearth bread each morning and makes exactly three desserts, which is two more than she thinks necessary.
Bar & Wine
Built a list that is almost entirely coastal, low-intervention and under $90. Will find you something odd if you let him.
Guests
We sat at the counter and watched every plate leave the fire. Three hours went by and we ordered a fourth round of oysters purely so we could stay.
Anna & Rob T.
Counter, a Thursday in April
I ate alone at the bar and did not once feel like I was eating alone.
They planned my mother’s eightieth down to which chair caught the least draught.
Best fish I have eaten on this coast, and I have been eating on this coast for sixty years.
Stories
Notes on the boats, the farms and the fire. Written by whoever has ten minutes.
It is slower, more expensive and harder to staff. Here is the argument for doing it anyway, and what it costs us each week.
Read it
Four captains, ninety miles of coast, and the standing arrangement that means we sometimes serve a fish nobody has heard of.
Read it
The best cut on the animal is the one most kitchens throw away. How we cook it and why it is on the menu at a third of the price.
Read itBefore you come
Reservations open thirty days ahead at 9am and go quickly. The bar takes walk-ins every night and is, in our opinion, the better seat.
Yes, and we would much rather know when you book than when you sit down. A full vegetable menu of the same length is always available with a day’s notice.
No. Come from the boat if you like — several people do.
Up to sixteen in the long table room, with a menu we plan with you about a week ahead. Write to us rather than using the booking system.
The wharf lot after 5pm is free, and there is a garage two blocks up on Concord. We will validate the garage if you ask on the way out.
In the dining room until eight, gladly, and the kitchen will happily cook something simple. The bar is over twenty-one after nine.
Reservations
Tables open thirty days ahead at 9am. For anything the booking system cannot handle — larger parties, allergies, a proposal you would like us to be discreet about — write to us here.