John Rutledge House Inn Press Reviews

 http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/2010/11/charleston_travel_guide

CHARLESTON, SC NAMED NO. 2 TOP AMERICAN DESTINATION

(Charleston, SC) -- For the eighteenth consecutive year, readers of Condé Nast Traveler magazine designated Charleston a “Top 10” travel destination in the United States.  More than 26,000 readers voted, honoring Charleston with the No. 2 slot - topped only by San Francisco by .04 of one point. This ranking maintains Charleston’s spot as the No. 1 east coast destination.

“To rank so highly among top U.S. destinations is an honor,” said Roger Warren, Chairman of the Charleston Area Convention & Visitors Bureau.  “From beach resorts to dining at award-winning restaurants to strolling down historic cobblestone alleys, we are proud to offer first-time and repeat visitors a truly unique experience that resonates long after returning home.”  

In other local rankings, Kiawah Island was lauded as the No. 1 island in North America.  The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island Golf Resort was named No. 3 in the Top 100 Resorts in the Mainland U.S. category and No. 29 on the Best in the World list.

A number of the top 100 hotels in the U.S. are located in the Charleston area.  Properties honored include: Charleston Place Hotel, French Quarter Inn, Planters Inn and Market Pavilion Hotel.  Making the Top 40 Small Hotels in the U.S. are the John Rutledge House Inn and the Wentworth Mansion.

Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. stated, “It has been our great honor to be named for years on the Top Ten list of best cities to visit.  Our consistent appearance on this list is a credit to the businesses which make the hospitality industry here such a winner and to the residents who are so proud to share our beautiful city.  Visitors appreciate the welcome, the history and the wonderful attractions and amenities which are offered in Charleston.”

Condé Nast Traveler, whose credo is “Truth in Travel,” is a monthly publication that caters to the experienced, discerning and frequent traveler.  Condé Nast Traveler’s correspondents, as far as possible, travel anonymously.  For more information on this year’s Readers Choice Awards visit http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/.

British travel website Nights in the Past, devoted to vacationers who want a little time travel in their accommodations, named John Rutledge House Inn among the 20 most historic places to stay in the US.  The site, run by a broadcast journalist, selected the Broad St. lodging as one of a few remaining properties that belonged to signers of the US Constitution.

The Post and Courier

Want a taste of life 250 years ago? This is your place. Built in 1763 for John Rutledge, one of the signers of the U.S. Constitution, the 19-room inn is filled with antiques and historically accurate reproductions to give the feel of an old Charleston home. At breakfast (included), the staff serves local specialties such as shrimp and grits with biscuits and sherried fruit in the Signers Ballroom where, it’s said, parts of the Constitution were drafted.

Full article

The Cultural Tourist-Howard Kissel

Eating in Charleston
May 27, 2009
The room I have stayed at the last few days in the historic John Rutledge House Inn, with its Italian marble fireplace, its beautiful parquet floors and elegant Victorian furnishings, exudes tranquility, the perfect mood for me to contemplate how I can possibly have eaten as much as I have eaten.

Equally important, how will I explain it to Hal, my Weight Watchers leader? Happily, Hal is not stern. When people tell him they've been bad, he asks if they've murdered someone or robbed a bank.

I, of course, have done neither of the above, but I never imagined on coming here that I would eat as much -- or as well -- as I have.

The rationale is simple. Charleston is a great eating city. What impresses me is that its culinary sophistication is so very American.

In the late '70s I had a friend who was a chef who wrote a lot of letters to Jimmy Carter, hoping to interest him in a program to make Americans aware of the richness of their own cuisine. I fear I myself was skeptical of his claim. So, apparently, was Jimmy Carter, for he never received a reply.

But in the last week I have enjoyed an enormous amount of cooking that owes little to foreign influences. The first night I was here I went to Jestine's Kitchen, a restaurant I heard highly touted by a loud passenger across the aisle on the flight down. He told his seatmate Jestine's had the best fried chicken he would ever eat.

Myself, I found the breading on Jestine's chicken tasty but a bit too thick. Everything else, however, was truly yummy -- the fried green tomatoes, the mashed potatoes and the collard greens were all exemplary. Jestine's pecan pie had flecks of pecan rather than whole nuts but the crust was fine and so was the overall taste.

A few nights later, at Hank's, a seafood place near the water, I had pecan pie that had the richness of a molten chocolate cake -- I never expect to eat better pecan pie. The scallops were also expertly cooked.

I sat at a communal table and enjoyed a conversation with a young West Pointer and his uncle, who were arguing politics -- at first I thought they were father and son and found the juxtaposition of the conservative son and the almost liberal father surprising. Only later did the older man say he was the boy's uncle. "If he had been my son I wouldn't have tolerated that," he joked. Next to me was a retired Chicago stockbroker who comes to Charleston every year and goes to everything he can.

One night I went to FIG, which has an elegant contemporary Caribbean decor. Chef Mike Lata recently won the James Beard best chef in the Southeast award for his cuisine based on local farmers.

I began with Pig's Trotters, which the extremely helpful young waiter explained to me, were simply pig's feet marinated, cooked and then fried lightly in bread crumbs. It was served with celeriac remoulade and lightly dressed baby arugala. For the first time I truly understood what blues singer Bessie Smith meant when she sang, "Give me a pig's foot and a bottle of beer!"

My main course was also pork -- beautifully roasted shoulder from a local farm served with sweet potatoes and roasted beets. Beets are a vegetable -- like spinach -- that I have loved since childhood but I have never encountered the full range of their taste until this seemingly straightforward preparation.

Dessert was a panna cotta of Greek yogurt with fresh local berries. Because it had yogurt and fruit I considered this a health dessert, which didn't make it any less tangy.

While waiting for my table I drank a delicious rose, Routas Rouviere, 2007, a Rhone blend from Provence. With the meal I had an excellent Italian Chardonnay-like Verdejo, an Analivia 2007.

The room was large and crowded but the noise level only moderate. Apparently Charlestonians do not subscribe to the New York notion that a "hot" restaurant has to be noisy.

Last night I went to Hall's Chophouse, a steak restaurant near the church where I attended a soul-warming Bach-Buxtehude concert. The atmosphere was warm, and there was a smooth-voiced blind pianist playing beautifully. I had a rich crab and corn soup, perfectly cooked rib eye steak, its slightly charred edges quite heavenly, and perfect mashed potatoes. For dessert I had a deeply satisfying dried-fruit-studded bread pudding with whisky sauce. Throughout the evening the service could not have been more solicitous.

She-crab soup was invented at the Rutledge House when it was still a private mansion a century ago for a visit by President Taft. To my amazement this elegant building, with its exquisite parquet floors and grand staircases, spent five years vacant before becoming an inn 20 years ago. The house has a ballroom in which afternoon tea is served. I was happy to have homemade lemonade, but there was also iced tea, real tea as well as port and sherry. More important, there were fresh tea sandwiches, homemade donuts and cookies.

The best she-crab soup I had was around the corner at a restaurant whose address, 82 Queen Street, is also its name.

The best meal I had was at Circa 1886, a restaurant in the renovated carriage house of the Wentworth Hotel, a sister institution to the Rutledge. Marc Collins, the chef, was named a Chef to Watch by Esquire a few years ago. His work has elegance and delicacy, and, to bring things back to American terminology, it packs a wallop.

As a little appetizer the chef sent out a demitasse cup of split pea soup with a dash of molasses. I began with a single sea scallop perfectly seared, topped with a tiny bit of thinly sliced Serrano ham and chopped musk melon (cantaloupe to us Yankees.) The combination was breathtaking.

Then I had boiled peanut soup. I had encountered boiled peanuts a few nights earlier at Hyman's, a restaurant, the taxi driver who brought me into town explained, "started by a Jew-man and continued by his family." You apparently soak peanuts in brine then boil them for several hours -- they're incredibly tasty. This peanut soup had a pungent texture, which Collins contrasted with a mound of celery foam. Again the combination was dazzling.

I had been urged to try the antelope. Naturally my phony sophistication made me suspicious because I know there are no local antelope here. The antelope comes from a ranch near San Antonio where chef Collins apprenticed. It is indeed a richly flavorful meat. It was served with a corn and onion relish, a roasted tomato and the creamiest grits I've ever tasted. Needless to say grits are a relatively new taste for me, but if they always tasted like these I could become addicted.

For dessert I had a banana creme caramel pie. Its flavors were both light and pungent.

The service could not have been better. Everything was explained with a jovial good humor I think of as Southern. I was startled to realize exactly a year ago I was in France, where I was, with a few notable exceptions, shocked by the lowering of standards. I understand that France now has to compete with many countries to hold onto its best chefs. But there was no excuse for the shoddy service I encountered at -- of all places -- Versailles.

Whether we can ride out this financial storm I do not know. But it fills me with pride to realize what enormous strides we've made in the American cuisine my friend of three decades back believed in so fervently.