Opening Shot is a column that peeks inside new hotels, restaurants, bars, and shops with dreamy interiors.
LOWLAND
Location: Charleston, South Carolina
Designer: Method Studios
On Offer: Just across the cobblestone alley from the beloved Bob Ellis shoe store, now home to The Pinch, a 22-suite boutique hotel, proudly stands the 1843 Lequeux-Williams House, a private residence-turned-tavern-and-tasting-menu destination Lowland designed by Method Studios. On the Greek Revival building’s ground floor, the Tavern offers à-la-carte dining from James Beard Award–winning Chef Jason Stanhope, formerly of the town’s famed FIG. A restored wood-burning fireplace cozies up the place, where diners can sup at the antiqued copper bar, head into the Tavern Room and sink into overstuffed leather armchairs, or survey the Parlour Room’s original windows with porcupine shades and plastered 12-foot ceilings. Upstairs, the Dining Room offers elegant, unfussy tasting menus surrounded by a psychedelic floor-to-ceiling mural of Spanish moss and cypress trees by Dean Barger Studios, framed by original moldings and thickets of emerald green banquettes.
Standout Amenities: Stanhope learned the art of biscuits from Savannah legend Cheryl Day, and serves them up with pepper jelly downstairs, alongside feel-good takes on his blend of pub and omakase like a Grilled Grey Triggerfish with scallion dashi, and an à-la-minute Banoffee pie. The Dining Room is home to wilder flights of fancy, where a 40-seat home for tasting menu experiences might take in anything from an ode to Italian red sauce joints to recent dishes of Kobe beef with Carolina Gold rice, and salt-roasted celery root with black truffle.
