Nicknamed the Hostess City of the South, Savannah is known for its hospitality. From early morning to late night, food and beverage folks feed the community well, then swap stories at local dives till closing time. But the city’s thriving food scene is relatively new, having taken off in 2014 with the opening of The Grey. The fine-dining spot established Savannah as a culinary destination, setting off an explosion of new bars and restaurants that encouraged both friendly competition and collaboration in the industry. Chefs began sourcing local ingredients, the city developed a rich cocktail culture and grow-ing international food scene, and diners no longer had to go downtown to get a good meal. Festivals are also a draw, with travelers pouring in for the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the inaugural Hostess City Food and Wine Fest, and new hotels popping up around town to host them. With all the changes of the last decade, the best thing about Savannah is still its people, who celebrate community and welcome newcomers warmly.
Best Places to Eat, Drink, and Explore
Most Decadent Desserts: Cotton & Rye
Save room for dessert at Cotton & Rye, where their housemade shortbread candy bars with caramel, chocolate, and crème fraîche and indulgent peanut butter pie will hit the spot.
Most Delicious Dumplings: E-TANG
When six perfect dumplings arrive at your table, eat them before your friends do. Located behind a few doors in a quiet strip mall, this Chinese restaurant is so well-loved in Savannah that if you stand anywhere long enough, you’ll hear a local mention it.
Best Culinary Experience: The Cooking School at Saint Bibiana
Upstairs at Hotel Bardo’s Italian restaurant, chef Matthew Cruz teaches courses like a farmers market cooking class where participants help build a truly exceptional multicourse meal with ingredients from the market across the street.
Coolest Cocktailing: Alley Cat Lounge
In an alleyway in the historic district, Alley Cat offers spirits served in beautifully mismatched glassware off a newspaper-like menu called the Alley Cat Rag. This spot changed the cocktail scene in Savannah, “leading the modern American cocktail revolution” with style.
Best All-Day Bites: Flora and Fauna
This charming neighborhood spot is part bakery, part coffee house, open for breakfast and lunch daily, and part supper club Wednesday through Sunday. Friendly staff and sunlight pouring in through large windows make it a cheery stop.
Best Way To Warm Up: Klom Klom
For a filling lunch that will warm you up when it’s cold outside, head to Klom Klom for killer Thai food. Don’t miss the duck chiang mai khao soi served in a creamy curry sauce with crispy fried noodles.
Best Wine Bar: Late Air
Grab a seat at the bar at Late Air and order the caesar salad with anchovies and whatever wine the bartender is drinking lately. And don’t miss the desserts, which range from rich, chocolatey creations to light-as-air sorbets.
Prettiest Plates: Common Thread
Chef-owner Brandon Carter heads the kitchen at Common Thread, where presentation is just as spectacular as taste. The CT lasagna, for example, with pork ragù, eggplant, and mushrooms, looks almost too good to eat.
Best Dirty Rice in the Business: Brochu’s Family Tradition
Brochu’s chicken is unmatched. Get the legendary dirty rice with grilled chicken bits or the fried chicken sandwich with sunchoke hot sauce, then finish off your meal with bourbon banana pudding.
Best Place to Start Your Night: Bar Julian
With this superlative given by a longtime local, Bar Julian rooftop lives up to the hype with a beautiful view of the city and great food like the Julian burger and handcrafted pizzas to pair with cocktails.
Claim to Fame
Chef Mashama Bailey
To say chef Mashama Bailey transformed Savannah’s food scene would be an understatement. Previously working in New York kitchens, Bailey took a leap of faith and teamed up with restaurateur John O. Morisano to open The Grey in this small Southern city just over 10 years ago. “I knew that I wanted to relocate, and I knew that I wanted to run my own restaurant, and I also knew it was time to leave Gabrielle [in NYC],” says Bailey. “It was very timely to look at a different opportunity.”
In a city largely built for visitors, The Grey was built for locals. The chef serves upscale Southern fare to anyone lucky enough to have a reservation. “It wasn’t until I started to develop the menu that the point of view started to shine through,” she says. “It was a local restaurant that focused on local ingredients. I really wanted to highlight local farmers. And it was soulful. And that’s what drew people in, our intentionality.” When asked what she wants The Grey to represent, she says, “Community. I want it to represent what people were eating in the region. I wanted people to sit down and feel nostalgic.”
Where to Shop
Opened in 2009, this bustling farmers market perfectly encapsulates the Savannah experience: community, food, and art, with locals and visitors strolling beneath Spanish moss-draped live oak trees at the beautiful Forsyth Park.
This teahouse by the river carries teas from around the globe. The beloved business is led by Wayne Ashford, a world-traveler who is as knowledgeable as he is passionate about tea and the stories behind each cup.
A maze of used, new, and rare books, this independent bookstore is eclectic (and a little hectic). Customers are met with the scent of dusty old tomes filled with tales of history and adventure.
Where to Stay
Savannah has seen a rise in luxury hotels in the last decade, especially downtown. Municipal Grand—all business on the outside, yet cozy and stylish inside—is a standout stay that opened earlier this year. The hotel’s location is tough to beat, situated near the river, right next to SCAD’s Trustees Theater and the popular Leopold’s Ice Cream at the heart of downtown. The on-site restaurant, Municipal Bar, serves Mediterranean bites breakfast through dessert. Come spring, guests can lounge by the rooftop pool, where they’ll have a beautiful view of the church-steeple skyline.
Meet a Local
Colin Breland, co-owner of Late Air
Late Air, a cozy wine bar serving natural wines and elevated bites a little off the beaten path, is owned by husband-and-wife duo Colin Breland and Madeline Ott. We caught up with Breland to hear about what it means to be a part of Savannah’s community.
What is unique about the wine program at Late Air?
We work only with very small producers. We work with people who make wine in the way that wine was made before the industrialization of the wine industry. It’s kind of an ode to the old peasant wine-making style. There are no chemical additives, only a little bit of sulfur. It’s just wine with nothing to hide behind.
How did the local community shape your vision?
We felt there was not enough representation of the wines we drank, and not enough owner-operated businesses in Savannah. We wanted to bring a fresh perspective to this place. We wanted to see how we could bring the high-end product and high-end service into a casual environment. We got to know our community through doing pop-ups and put the name out there for about a year before we opened our doors so we could get to know the people around us. We wanted to make it as welcoming as possible.
What drew you to Savannah?
My wife went to school here. I came down here from New York City, and we decided to move around the country after she graduated. We moved around to a lot of places and then we kind of tossed around ideas of where we wanted to go, like Nashville, or back home to Virginia Beach, where we’re from. Savannah kept coming up as a place we wanted to go back to, but there was this notion that there wasn’t a place we wanted to eat or drink there. It felt like the city was calling us back to it, and so we visited a few times and fell back in love with it, and pretty organically found the place where Late Air is now.
Walk us through a perfect day in Savannah.
Waking up on a Saturday, grabbing a coffee from Good Fortune Market on the way to the farmers market, cruising through saying hi to friends and farmers and filling up a grocery bag for the week. After that, grabbing brunch or lunch at Sixby, our friendly neighborhood café. Then a little afternoon walk downtown would be really nice, maybe stopping at Provisions to grab a bottle of wine. The perfect dinner scenario, we’d probably go to Brochu’s right at 5:30 when they open, grab a bunch of oysters, then go grab cocktails at Lone Wolf after.
How do you give back to the community?
My wife and I help out with Renegade Rescue, a dog rescue in Savannah that we’re super close with. We do their Wag-o-ween event every year, a donations-based party. Late Air was actually owned by the woman who started the Wag-o-ween event—it [used to be] a pet store. We’ve helped carry on the tradition of creating space for those people. It’s been really cool to see.
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Tate Jacaruso
Tate Jacaruso loves celebrating Southern food, travel, and culture as associate editor at the Local Palate. She is based in Charleston and is currently making her way through every bowl of pasta and oyster on the half shell in town. Her work has appeared in Charleston Living Magazine and CHStoday.
