You’ve heard of the three-martini lunch. The ladies’ lunch. The work meeting lunch (or, perhaps, that is the three-martini lunch after all).
Needless to say, there are a number of ways to have a leisurely lunch. Leisure, to us, means taking your time with your meal and your company — ordering appetizers and entrees and engaging in lengthy conversations. Leisure does not always equate to long amounts of time, although it certainly can.
Leisure, whether you’re dining solo, with a group, with a plan or with all the time in the world, can be achieved when a lunch spot offers not just great food, but a great ambiance, too. For an hour (or more!), you may find yourself transported to a more luxurious way of life, one where you can actually sip, not slurp, your she-crab soup.
We chatted with some area restaurants that offer lunch — a feat in and of itself — and learned what it is these proprietors love about the mid-day meal.
Slightly North of Broad
Chelsea Christian, the chef de cuisine at Slightly North of Broad (SNOB), has seen it all during the lunch service at the popular East Bay Street restaurant.
From regulars to revelers (who are sometimes, of course, one in the same), SNOB diners have been frequenting the restaurant for over three decades now. Christian said diners are particularly fond of the restaurant’s “lunch fixe” menu, which includes three courses for $35 and changes frequently.
“[It’s great] having that place that you can always go to and rely on every day,” she said, adding that the restaurant has had regulars who have come in daily — yes, daily — for years. “It’s crazy to me — the fact that you could trust a restaurant that much.”
Thirty years in, though, SNOB has become a trusted lunch destination in Charleston. “I haven’t seen a lunch lately [where] we have been slow,” Christian said.
Part of the luxury of a leisure restaurant like SNOB is how service, no matter how long you plan on staying at the restaurant, is quick and efficient. “For people who are actually in a rush, we try to accommodate that as well as we can,” Christian said.
But when you’re stopping by SNOB, you may want to make a little bit of extra time to spare so you can order the dishes Christian herself would sit down to enjoy.
“I always have to start with the carpaccio,” she said. The thinly sliced, grass fed beef carpaccio is served with red wine dijon, parmesan cheese, capers and a grilled baguette. Christian said she’s also partial to the Reuben, calling it “one of the best sandwiches in the city.”
Malika Canteen
What started as a residency in the now defunct food hall, The Workshop, Malika Canteen and its sister restaurant, Ma’am Saab, quickly gained a cult following of foodies eager for the tastes of Pakistani food.
Co-owner and creative director Raheel Gauba said that he knew the city needed more Pakistani flavors.
The process of introducing lunch at Malika has been a work in progress, said Gauba. From the beginning, diners, while loving the flavors of Pakistani food, were not huge fans of large lunch portions.
“The feedback that we received was: ‘It’s too much food’ or ‘It’s too heavy,’ ” Gauba said. So, Malika pivoted and added naan pizzas, street burgers and rolls (similar to sandwich wraps).
Gauba said that growing up in Pakistan, lunch was never traditionally considered a leisurely meal.
“It was pretty fast-paced,” he said. “It was just the elites who would be going out to restaurants and even then, the men were at work, so they weren’t really [going out].”
Things have changed, though.
“Now we are seeing a completely different culture in Pakistan where all these nice restaurants have popped up and many of them are catering to the lunch experience because it was something that was missing,” Gauba said.
Malika is bright colors, upbeat music and powerful flavors — a far cry from the sad desk lunches you may be used to. Located in Mount Pleasant’s sprawling Towne Centre, the restaurant is easily accessible.
Malagón Mercado y Tapería and Chez Nous
Sister restaurants Malagón and Chez Nous, owned and operated by partners Jill Mathias and Juan Cassalett, offer European-inspired lunch experiences steeped in leisure, wine and a little bit of luxury. (In fact, the couple just opened a small wine bar, La bonbonnette bar à vin, in Paris.)
Cassalett, who is the executive chef of Malagón, said the tiny restaurant celebrates big, long lunches, ones that Spaniards are used to having. Diners can spend several hours at Malagón, choosing from a tapas style menu that features sections like “para picar” (snacks), “del mar” (from the sea) and an extensive charcuterie and cheese selection.
“Lunch is a big thing,” Cassalett said. “We want it to be lively and more approachable [with] a lot of options.”
He noted Charleston diners have become more educated in recent years and are more open to different kinds of experiences, including Euro-style long lunches. He also said he and Mathias are long lunch folks themselves. “We’re the type of people who come in at 3 o’clock [and have lunch] be the main meal of the day,” he said.
There’s something to be said for visiting a buzzy restaurant during lunch, rather than dinner service. “At lunch you get these really incredible meals where people are firing on all cylinders,” Cassalett said.
Mathias is the head chef at Chez Nous, a super-popular dinner destination (book your reservation ahead of time!), and said she sees a lot more walk-ins for lunch service.
“In most other cultures, lunch is the main meal of the day,” Mathias said. She noted one of her favorite ways to get a feel for a new city is to grab lunch. “Just take note of what’s going on around you, people watching … exploring a menu or talking over ideas … it’s a really great thing to be able to do.”
Chez Nous sees a number of regulars for lunch and dinner, with folks coming back for the restaurant’s signature brand new daily menu. Recent dishes have included gnocchetti with pine nuts, fish with brown butter cabbage, roasted squash with goat cheese and leeks with mustard vinaigrette.
And in true leisurely lunch fashion, Mathias said that the majority of diners will have at least one glass of wine.
Mathias, who said her tastes lean Mediterranean, would be ordering any fish dish or “big, crunchy salad” that Chez Nous is putting out.
While it can be difficult to find Charleston restaurants open for lunch service — staffing can be an issue, as well as the host of unknowns that come with operating during an off dining hour — Mathias said that Chez Nous thrives off of its back-to-back services.
“It’s super hard but at the same time, it can make your whole day,” she said. “If you have a really good lunch and then you go into dinner service it’s like, ‘Oh, we’ve already started the day.’”
Obstinate Daughter
We chatted with Jacques Larson, owner and head chef at beloved Sullivan’s Island restaurant Obstinate Daughter (OD) in December, before the restaurant suffered a kitchen fire in the beginning of January. As of press time, the restaurant was still closed for repairs.
“When we opened up this place we knew we were going to do lunch and dinner,” Larson said. “You’re at the beach — I didn’t want to shut down in between breaks. No one wants to think about, ‘Oh we have to be there by 2,’ or whatever the case may be.”
Larson, who is the owner and head chef at OD and Johns Island’s Wild Olive, worked in a number of Charleston restaurants before opening his own places. “For so many years, cooking downtown, lunch was literally a four letter word,” he said.
On the beach, though, Larson said the lunch business has always done just fine.
“Not a lot of [restaurants] opt to do lunch and you don’t necessarily want to go out and have a white tablecloth, ultra fine dining experience, but sometimes you want something a little more elevated,” he said.
OD offers just that, with dishes like the swordfish Siciliana, served with green olives, capers, blistered tomato, raisin and currant and the ricotta gnocchi, served with short rib ragu, horseradish and pine nut gremolata.
You can stick with simpler fare, too, of course, like the restaurant’s daily selection of raw oysters, a local lettuce salad or a meatball sandwich.
“We don’t have the biggest menu in the world,” Larson said. “I think it’s a pretty well-rounded menu. There should be a little bit of something for everyone.”
Larson noted that a lot of out-of-town lunch diners head to OD as part of their tour of Charleston restaurants, grateful that they can mark off a hotspot because it serves lunch. He sees a lot of fellow food and bev workers, too, who often have weekday lunches off of work. “It reaffirms that we’re not just a tourist-driven business,” he said.
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