Local Food Gets National Nods

It's been a big few months for Charleston area food. First, there was the August announcement by Bon Appettit magazine that declared Husk Restaurant in downtown Charleston the Best New Restaurant in the country.

This week, Travel and Leisure magazine named the city itself the No. 9 Best City for Foodies, just ahead of San Antonio and just behind sister city/arch nemesis Savannah. The city for poor boy sandwiches, New Orleans, topped the list.

Here's what Travel and Leisure had to say about Charleston:

This South Carolina city embraces its traditional low-country cuisine—southern cooking with a heavy dose of coastal oysters, crab, and shrimp. Stroll around the historic district and you’ll see (and smell) plenty of foodie magnets like the new HUSK, helmed by James Beard Award–winner Sean Brock.

Also this week, restaurant reservation website, OpenTable, named FIG restaurant as one of the Top 50 Restaurants for Foodies. 

More than 10 million people use OpenTable, so FIG's rise to the top means plenty of folks have given it good reviews.

Read OpenTable users' reviews of FIG.

Online reviews can be a crapshoot in terms of real reliability. It seems like griping perfectionists only log on, but you can rest assured that if a restaurant is on the top, it must be pretty darn good.

There's also a big theme here. Both FIG and Husk serve Southern-inspired dishes using sustainable and locally grown foods. These nods to local food come after Charleston was named as the No. 2 destinations for American travel by Travel and Leisure.