There is often no better way to understand a culture than to experience its cuisine. North Charleston’s Afghan Restaurant and Market, which opened in fall 2025 at 5101 Ashley Phosphate Road, is a testament to this.
The restaurant-market is owned by Fauzia Garner, a native of Kabul, Afghanistan. Garner has been enmeshed in the Charleston culinary scene since 2007, working in restaurants and through her own food truck. Throughout this time, Garner realized Afghan families living in the area did not have a market to buy foods from home. This, and a desire to share the food of Afghanistan with the wider community, was the impetus behind opening the restaurant and market.
A lifetime of preparation
Garner moved to Frankfurt, Germany, from Kabul when she was 16. After high school, she started working as a server at a hotel restaurant while also catering with her mother.
“I learned everything from my mom,” Garner said. “The stuff was a gift from God. The recipes that she taught me. Everything was homemade and that’s what we’re trying to do here at the restaurant.”
During her time in Germany, she met her husband. They relocated to Toms River, N.J., in 1994. Garner went to college in the United States to learn English, and she and her husband moved up and down the east coast several times for his job.
They settled in the Charleston area in 2007, and Garner started catering Afghan food. She built a following through word of mouth and participation in festivals. This led to personal chef gigs and a food truck, Fauzia’s Kitchen, which she ran from 2015 to 2020, all while volunteering on an almost daily basis at a food bank in North Charleston.
The next chapter
Garner looked for a location for Afghan Restaurant and Market for over a year before finding the spot on Ashley Phosphate Road.
“The reason we opened the market was because a lot of Afghan people here don’t have the spices and the rice,” Garner said. “Also, we have a lot of fresh [Halal] meat. People come weekly for fresh meat. People would go all the way to Columbia or Atlanta to buy spices. That was the reason we opened.”
While the Afghan population in Charleston is small, it is close knit and vibrant.
“We have about 20 families here now,” she said. “We had more, but people moved to California and other states. Two families are helping me in the kitchen. One lady comes in the morning to help cook the rice, and one lady comes to cut and marinate the meat and to cut vegetables.”
Afghan food and provisions
While it’s hard to go wrong with the menu at Afghan Restaurant and Market, some highlights include bolani, manto, kaboli palow and the lamb shank. Bolani is a very traditional Afghan dish that can be found with different fillings, from potato to pumpkin to meat. Manto is a steamed dumpling stuffed with ground beef sauteed with garlic, onion and spices.
Kaboli palow is the national dish of Afghanistan — the only other country that makes it is Uzbekistan — and it has basmati rice, carrot, raisins, almond and cardamom, served with choice of lamb or chicken. Other options at the restaurant include chicken and lamb gyros, kebobs, an excellent stewed eggplant dish and desserts like ferni, a pudding like sweet made with milk, cardamon, corn flour and pistachio. There is also a kid’s menu with a variety of kebabs served with rice and French fries.
Most dishes at Afghan Restaurant and Market are served with yogurt and chakni (chutney) that are both house-made. For the chakni, Garner uses a milder red jalapeno, fresh cilantro, vinegar, salt and water. The only downside to the delicious chutney is that Garner does not yet bottle it to sell in the market.
For those that have not yet had Afghan food, Garner has a clear and welcoming message. “I promise you’re going to like it,” she said. “The food is not spicy; it doesn’t burn your mouth. The spice is not too strong and doesn’t take over the flavor of the food.”
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