This SC restaurant is one of 50 best in the US, New York Times says. Here are the details
One South Carolina restaurant made the third annual New York Times Restaurant List: Vern’s, which opened in a Charleston neighborhood last year.
It’s one of many accolades the restaurant has garnered in a short period, including Conde Nast, James Beard and various Charleston publications that simply gush.
Owned by Bethany and Daniel Heinze, the couple met while working at the now closed McCrady’s in Charleston, which was founded by legendary chef and James Beard award winner Sean Brock.
The Times restaurant writer Priya Krishna, said of Vern’s, “Finally, wine-bar food feels interesting again.”
Daniel, who goes by Dano, was selected as a semi-finalist this year for best chef in the Southeast by the James Beard Awards.
The restaurant was once a corner grocery, built in 1881, in the Elliottborough neighborhood, a section in downtown Charleston of trendy shops and restaurants and largely restored homes that attract young professionals and students. Vern’s is named for Dano Heinze’s late grandfather, who owned a butcher shop and grocery store in Wisconsin, publicist JJ Duggan said. Guests are given a postcard bearing a photo of him standing in front of his butcher case.
The couple worked in Los Angeles for about five years before moving back to Charleston, which they consider home, to open their own restaurant.
“It was also important to us when we took this space to become a neighborhood driver,” Dano Heinze told Wendy Swat Snyder in a story for Charleston Living magazine. “We love for visitors to find us, but really wanted to be a place for locals — and it happened right away. Our staff is great about recognizing guests, which is key.”
Bethany, Vern’s operations and bar manager, is a graduate of the College of Charleston, executive chef Dano Johnson & Wales in Miami.
Food writer Robert F. Moss wrote in the Charleston Post and Courier that Vern’s renewed his hope for fine dining, calling it a “magical space.”
“As the light fades outside and the tables fill, the room begins to buzz and then hum, but it never grows too loud,” he wrote. “Each new plate and each new glass that arrives becomes its own little adventure, full of novelty and possibility.”
The New York Times said they sent a “dozen reporters, editors and critics to hundreds of places across the United States — from Rattlesnake Point in Florida to the Arts District in Los Angeles — to find our favorites.”
They selected 50, half of them opened since 2022.
“Despite the upheavals in recent years, this is an expansive moment for independent restaurants,” the newspaper said. “We can’t help but feel that cities and towns in the United States are better to eat in today than they have ever been.”
