Neighborhood Dining Group to open downtown steakhouse next year

This week the Neighborhood Dining Group (the hospitality group behind Husk, Minero, Delaney Oyster House and The James) announced a forthcoming “ambitious new concept” opening in early 2024. Marbled & Fin, located at 480 East Bay Street, will, according to NDG vice president Kenny Lyons, be a “modern interpretation” of a classic steakhouse.

“You’re not going to come in [and] there’s mahogany on the walls and tufted booths,” Lyons said.

Located in the same complex as the City Paper, Marbled & Fin is a new buildout that will eventually feature 150-plus seats, both indoor and out. The high ceilings and walls of windows create an airy, open and modern space that Lyons hopes will feel inclusive to all customers.

Marbled & Fin will focus on premium cuts of beef and fresh seafood, as the name suggests. “We’re taking classic and traditional items and putting a chef’s touch and creativity behind them,” said Lyons, who noted that the restaurant will focus equally on beef and seafood, with special attention to raw bar preparations and vegetables that exist outside of the box of potatoes and creamed spinach.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a classic steakhouse — as Lyons said, steakhouses have a tried and true formula that hasn’t broken yet. Rather, Marbled & Fin will be “something people understand, even if they may not have expected it to look a certain way,” Lyons said.

Two decades of hospitality

Neighborhood Dining Group (NDG) has been making big moves over the past couple of years, with a 2022 relocation of popular Mexican restaurant Minero to Johns Island, and the opening of new James Island spot, The James this past summer.

Founded in 2001 by David Howard, NDG is perhaps best known for its role in the success of chef Sean Brock’s famed downtown eateries, Husk and McCrady’s. While Brock left those restaurants in 2019, NDG’s impact on Charleston’s culinary scene is hard to understate.

In 2019, City Paper contributor Robert Moss wrote about the glory days of Charleston cuisine in the late aughts, highlighting the contributions of NDG and Brock: “In 2010, Charleston was just emerging as a national food destination. Robert Stehling of Hominy Grill and Mike Lata of FIG had brought home back-to-back James Beard Awards for Best Chef Southeast, and Sean Brock of McCrady’s was about to make it a threepeat.”

In a 2021 interview with City Paper, Howard said: “We believe that we’ve enhanced the culinary scene and have worked hard to garner a lot of national and international recognition which helps the city of Charleston.”

Lyons emphasized the importance of hospitality both to NDG and its latest project: “We have four walls that surround where we are; we have the ability to take care of and treat everyone as a human and provide a service to them that makes them feel something that’s not just a meal.”

Learn more about NDG’s restaurants at neighborhooddininggroup.com.