When Bintü Atelier opened in the summer of 2023, it marked the start of an important chapter in the downtown Charleston restaurant scene. While the influences of African cuisine are integral to the story of South Carolina and its complicated history, there was not a restaurant specializing in food of the African continent on the peninsula. Bintou N’Daw, a native of Dakar, Senegal, wanted to change that.
And since opening, the accolades for Bintü have piled up. Bon Appetit named it one of the “20 Best New Restaurants of 2024” and it made Esquire’s 2024 list of the nation’s best new restaurants. Most recently, N’Daw was named a 2026 James Beard Award Semifinalist for Best Chef: Southeast.
Eating a meal there is soul-affirming. It is a restaurant rooted in history and global influence, paying homage to the Lowcountry and pushing people to learn and understand more about culture through cuisine.
N’Daw’s genesis as a chef
It should come as no surprise that a woman with a dynamic upbringing would create such a dynamic restaurant. Both of N’Daw’s French and Senegalese grandmothers were caterers. They also were her first teachers in the kitchen.
N’Daw started pastry school in France and quickly learned that, while sweets were not her passion, she loved cooking savory food. This took her to professional kitchens in France, Spain, Tanzania and Cameroon. When she was working as a traveling chef for a family, they relocated to New York City, and she went with them.
The next chapter saw N’Daw start a packaged Senegalese sauce brand and work as a private chef for celebrities. She then opened her first restaurant in the Bronx, iNINE Bistro, which thrived — even during the pandemic.
Lovers of travel, N’Daw and co-owner and husband Tracey Young would often travel to the Southeast. When a close friend moved to Charleston, they would visit. During these trips, N’Daw fell in love with the city.
“I felt the influence of the French and an even deeper connection here when I learned of the Gullah Geechee culture,” she told Charleston City Paper in 2023.
She took the leap and moved to Charleston in 2021, joining Chez Nous as sous chef, while also working in her free time with B.J. Dennis and immersing herself in Gullah Geechee food traditions. During this first year in Charleston, she did not encounter any restaurants that served the cuisine of home. It was during this time that she heard about an open space on Line Street and stars aligned.
Opening the atelier
N’Daw was ready to bring the foods of Africa to Charleston. The decision to open downtown was intentional.
“You see tourists and you see a lot of people, but it’s not a multicultural city downtown,” she continued. “I wanted to stay downtown because of that.
“I wanted to have this tiny house where it’s personal, but also open to everybody to sit and join each other and have conversation. I felt like African food, if it works, that will be something that will open the minds of people about who we are and the story of the city. I really wanted to be a part of this city and tell the story that is still difficult, but beautiful.”
When Bintü Atelier opened in 2023, there were three dishes on the menu: an okra stew, red rice with fish and vegetables, and mafé, which is a peanut stew with chicken or mushrooms. Since then, the menu has evolved to one with dishes that represent West Africa, but with flashes of global taste.
“We had the opportunity to highlight food from those different countries,” Young said. “North, east, west, south or even if it’s a hybrid version of something. We go through the diaspora, wherever Africans may have landed and assimilated with that environment, with their spices.”
“All the dishes have the story of what happened in Africa before slavery,” N’Daw continued. “It was trade. We had spices and things coming from all over the world. East Africa is really spice-oriented like India. You have beautiful curries. In the west, you have tomatoes that come from Mexico, so the jollof (a one-pot rice dish) embraced tomato.”
Everything on the Bintü Atelier menu is a highlight. Egusi has red shrimp in a smoked red pepper stew with ground melon seed curd, pumpkin and greens. The dish is served with a choice of broken rice or fufu, a West African staple. It is a soft, doughy disc made from starchy root vegetables like yams or plantains, meant to be eaten with the fingers by using it as a scoop. The shito (a spicy pepper sauce from Ghana) crab rice is a crabmeat and broken rice stir fry with greens, yam and the spicy shito paste.
The beverage program at the restaurant, created by Young, is just as thoughtful as the food. Drinks like a passionfruit juice, a sorrel tea and a soursop drink, made from the sweet and creamy tropical fruit, all pair beautifully with the cuisine.
To end, Young also steers an ice cream program. Flavors have included hibiscus with blackberry jam as well as a rosemary limoncello, made with herbs grown on-site.
Bintü’s next chapter
When asked about what else is in store on Line Street, N’Daw said, “I want to open this place more as a community center where we can do different things that open discussion.”
There likely will be more cooking classes, more collaborations, pop-ups and maybe a market. And lunch service is expected to return soon.
“Our mission is to link African food and the food of the South,” N’Daw said. “Reconciliation through food. To me, this place and the fact that it was really small and in this kind of neighborhood was important. It was not really targeted to Black people, but to make sure that we have a conversation. That we can still talk to each other.”
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