Charleston Beer, Wine & Booze

French Quarter · french, crepes, cocktails

A basement bar, which is rare in a city that floods. The venue's own site calls it 'one of the only below-street-level bars in the city' and a 'bar clandestin', located beneath the French restaurant Brasserie La Banque at 1 Broad Street. Guests go down the building's original historic staircase into a room with soft lighting and Art Deco influenced furnishings. The menu is crepes, cocktails and champagne, and walk-ins are taken first come, first served.

Ansonborough · $$$$ · new american, contemporary, modern american

The Restaurant at Zero George is the dining room of the Zero George boutique hotel in Ansonborough, and it works out of an unusually small kitchen. Chef Vinson Petrillo runs a tasting menu that The Post and Courier describes through technical dishes such as a liquid-nitrogen shrimp cocktail and wagyu over Japanese charcoal. The hotel also runs The Caviar Bar, which draws on Petrillo's time as chef de cuisine at Caviar Russe in New York, and a cooking school with chef-led classes. It is Recommended in the inaugural MICHELIN Guide American South.

Cannonborough-Elliotborough · wine, small plates

A wine bar in a house, not a storefront. The Post and Courier's 2026 itinerary (14 January 2026) describes it as tucked inside a 150-plus-year-old single house in Cannonborough-Elliotborough, steps from Chez Nous and Chubby Fish. Sommelier Matthew Conway opened it in October 2021 with his wife, Carissa. Micah Pearson runs the food menu. The same owners run The Press, a burrito window next door.