Xo Brasserie, a restaurant serving Cantonese and Sichuan-influenced cuisine, is opening soon at 1090 Morrison Drive.
Xo Brasserie owner Herman Ng, who previously worked with Indigo Road Hospitality, said he is excited to introduce Charleston diners to the food he grew up eating.
“My family owned [Chinese] restaurants all throughout the 70s, 80s, 90s and early 2000s,” said Ng, who grew up in Columbia. “I was the Chinese kid running around in the back.”
Growing up in a restaurant environment, Ng worked his way up and around a kitchen, moving from washing dishes to prepping food to learning how to cook on woks. He admitted that as a kid he wanted to fit in — “you want to eat hamburgers and pizzas” — but as he got older he yearned for the kind of international cuisine you can often only find in bigger cities.
“I feel like Charleston’s missing the food you see in New York, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco,” he said. “So [Xo Brasserie] kind of spawned from that thought of, ‘Man, I would love to be able to bring the type of cuisine it’s lacking.”
Partnering with executive chef Michael Chanthavong, Ng has created a modern Chinese American menu, with dishes like vegetarian Ma Po Tofu, salt and pepper shrimp and crab rangoon. “I’ve worked in steakhouses for Indigo Road and this [Xo Brasserie] has more ‘me’ to it,” said Ng. “I learned a lot working for them. This has more of my upbringing, culture and heritage.”
A matter of taste
Ng said that while Xo Brasserie’s menu is inspired by the food he grew up eating, he worked hard to “take it from 1990 to 2024.” He said that plating and presentation is important, as is the blending of flavors, which range from Cantonese to Sichuan to Laotian (chef Chanthavong is Laos).
“I personally love dumplings, and I feel like there’s nothing like it around here in terms of the type of dumplings I grew up eating and that I make at home,” said Ng. The incorporation of Sichuan flavors — often thought of as super spicy — won’t “blow your palate out,” he added. “I don’t want people to come here and take a bite of a dish and then they can’t taste anything after. That defeats the whole purpose.”
In addition to curating the menu’s flavors, Ng and his team carefully created a buzzy space inside the new, multi-use building on Morrison Drive. Brasserie’s interior features clean lines, moody lighting, leafy plants and special touches, like a large custom wine rack. Local art group Girls Who Paint Murals painted a large, colorful mural that spans Xo Brasserie’s bar area and part of its open kitchen.
Some of the larger tables feature big lazy Susans that play into Ng’s goal of family-style dining. “It’s how I grew up,” he said. “You order a bunch of different dishes, and you all get to try a bunch of stuff.”
Ng wants guests to be able to try a variety of dishes and he wants folks with food restrictions to feel like they’ve got a variety of choices, too. “I want it to be approachable for vegetarians and vegans. I want us to have gluten free options,” he said, adding that his time with Indigo Road helped him figure out how to, well, figure it out.
“It’s about hospitality,” said Ng, adding that he is both humbled by and grateful for the team members who joined him at Xo Brasserie, many of whom he worked with previously at Indigo Road.
This is Ng’s first experience opening his own restaurant and while he credits his past work experience with preparing him for a lot of the trials and tribulations, no one can really know until they know.
“It’s heavy, you know, in terms of [weighing on] the shoulder,” joked Ng.
“But I think it’s going to be very rewarding. I have a very, very strong team.”
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