A Food Review of the Charleston Downtown Culinary Tour

If you’re in Charleston + you’re a foodie + you want to experience something fun and totally unique for dinner, you must try a food tour with Charleston Culinary Tours. For about $60 a person, you get to try out roughly 12 courses from about 3 different restaurants. It’s an experience that will leave you ridiculously full (in fact, if you’re a light eater, you may want to sample each course so you can actually finish the tour) and a few history facts smarter. Since it’s heavy-laden with food, duh, the tour incorporates a bit of walking between restaurants along with a brief Charleston history lesson throughout the streets you pass. The specific tour we took was the Downtown one but you could opt for Upper King Street or Mixology (and a few others!) if you prefer. Overall, the food was amazing. I definitely enjoyed certain dishes more than others and it was fun meeting other people on the tour.

Our food adventure started with Southend Brewery, an industrially decorated smokehouse located on Bay St. We were given four courses, one of which came from a sister restaurant. Out of the 4, the smoked pork bbq was my favorite. So if you happen to come to Southend Brewery on your own, sans a tour guide, be sure to add the bbq to your list of things to try (all the courses we received are also offered on their menus).

Our next destination was Eli’s Table, located on Meeting St. This restaurant served our samples family style. Our entire table received platefuls of each course and we helped ourselves to whatever we wanted to try. The sweet potato pancakes were a huge hit and they were my absolute favorite. If you want to try local specialties, the shrimp and grits is a must. And best of all, both are offered on their menus.