McCrady's

Our verdict

Two Unity Alley sits in Charleston's French Quarter inside a Georgian-era building that predates the restaurant by centuries, and that architectural weight has always shaped what McCrady's asked of its guests: a degree of seriousness about the table. The restaurant opened in 1993 and spent its early years establishing itself as a high-end destination for Southern and Lowcountry cooking, earning a reputation as one of Charleston's leading fine-dining addresses before the city's dining scene attracted the national attention it commands today. The kitchen's national profile sharpened considerably under chef Sean Brock, whose tenure produced the James Beard Award for Best Chef Southeast in 2010 and drew comparisons, from New York Times food editor Sam Sifton, to the strongest restaurants outside America's first-tier cities. Under Brock, the menu moved toward a more avant-garde, tasting-menu-driven format, with dishes that placed Lowcountry ingredients inside a technically ambitious framework. Country ham cotton candy and escargot-stuffed marrow bone appeared on those menus, signalling a kitchen that treated Southern pantry staples as material for serious experimentation rather than nostalgic comfort. The room itself supported that ambition. A long-room addition to the historic structure gave the space a particular geometry, and the atmosphere in its fine-dining configuration read as a special-occasion venue rather than a casual drop-in. Hard-to-find wines and hand-crafted cocktails extended the program beyond the plate. A four-course prix fixe ran around $65 per person during one period of operation, placing it firmly in the upper tier of Charleston dining at that time.