Husk Named Bon Appétit Magazine's 2011 Best New Restaurant

Executive Chef Sean Brock’s Southern Fare is Featured on the Cover of the Top Ten Restaurants of the Year Issue

CHARLESTON, SC – August 16, 2011 – Bon Appétit magazine’s September 2011 issue names HUSK restaurant in Charleston, SC The Best New Restaurant in America, and prominently features Executive Chef Sean Brock’s signature Skillet-Roasted Chicken on the cover. The issue spotlights the magazine’s annual Top Ten Restaurants of the Year list. This honor comes as HUSK enters its eleventh month of business in a year marked by tremendous acclaim and media accolades-highlights of which include being named Best New Restaurant in the South by Southern Living (January 2011); a feature story by The New York Times restaurant critic Sam Sifton (February, 2011), and many others.

We are humbled to receive such an honor. Our team has worked extremely hard over the last eleven months and this is the ultimate recognition of our efforts, says David Howard, President of Neighborhood Dining Group.

Opened in November 2010, HUSK epitomizes Southern Hospitality through its commitments to Southern foodways and a relaxed dining experience. The farm-to-table restaurant is in housed in a beautifully restored pre-Civil War mansion located in the heart of historic Charleston.

The second story piazza, overlooking Queen Street, is one of the Peninsula City’s most popular al fresco dining spots. The restaurant’s entryway is site of a 10-foot tall blackboard listing every ingredient and its strictly southern supplier (all ingredients used at HUSK must originate south of the Mason Dixon Line)-a locavore philosophy Brock embodies, literally. Easily identifiable by his oft-worn Make Cornbread Not War baseball cap and vivid garden patch tattoo that covers his left arm, the 33-year old chef is shaping modern, southern cuisine by revisiting traditional cooking methods and personally propagating heirloom seeds on the brink of extinction at his 1.5-acre plot at Thornhill Farms located in picturesque McClellanville, a fishing hamlet outside of Charleston. HUSK’s menus are refreshed daily but feature creative riffs on classic southern foods and antebellum recipes interpreted with proteins indigenous to the region and seasonal local produce.

For more information or to make a reservation, contact 843-577-2500.

 About The Neighborhood Dining Group:
With operations in Charleston, S.C., and Atlanta, GA, The Neighborhood Dining Group manages a group of restaurants that range from award-winning fine dining to family-friendly casual options. The group currently operates McCrady’s, Queen Anne’s Revenge, and Husk Restaurant in Charleston, S.C., and Chicago’s Steak and Seafood in Roswell, GA. To contact The Neighborhood Dining Group, Inc., please call (770) 645-9944.

About the Charleston Area:
Home to approximately 650,000 metro area residents and visited by four million visitors annually, the Charleston area has produced six nominees for the James Beard Foundation Best Chef Award over the past four years, three of whom brought home the title during consecutive years, from 2008 – 2010, including Brock, who won six months prior to opening HUSK. The string of successive wins suggests the Charleston culinary community is having a moment on the national stage. 

Known for its Lowcountry cuisine, plantation-field-to-table fare that has evolved for more than three hundred years and is interpreted by three distinct evolutions of chefs-the vanguards of Gullah, the forerunners of fine Lowcountry dining and today’s talents, like Brock, who prepare sophisticated interpretations of local ingredients. With emphasis placed on seasonal staples and flavors reflecting the Caribbean and African influences on the region’s sea island heritage, the cuisine is the heart and soul of Charleston culture. To learn more about the Charleston Area, please call (843) 853-8000 or visit www.ExploreCharleston.com.