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The Ordinary
The Ordinary, opened by chef Mike Lata inside a converted 1927 former bank building, built its reputation around an oyster-and-seafood-hall concept, with its shrimp and grits standing out as one of the menu's most consistently praised traditional Lowcountry dishes within an otherwise more contemporary seafood-focused restaurant. Lata, already well known in Charleston for his other acclaimed restaurant FIG before opening The Ordinary, brought the same ingredient-driven, technically precise approach to a more casual raw-bar-and-seafood-hall format, giving the shrimp and grits a level of technical polish uncommon for what's traditionally a homestyle Lowcountry dish. The restaurant's soaring former-bank-vault dining room, with high ceilings and marble details preserved from the building's original construction, gives it a genuinely striking setting distinct from the smaller, more intimate spaces typical of most Charleston restaurants serving the dish. For a Charleston shrimp and grits list, The Ordinary is the essential "seafood hall elevation" entry — a converted bank building housing one of the city's most technically refined takes on the classic dish within a broader, acclaimed seafood-hall concept.
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Poogan's Porch
Poogan's Porch, operating since 1976 out of a converted Victorian house on Queen Street, has served traditional Lowcountry cooking for nearly five decades, making it one of the longer-running traditional Southern restaurants in a Charleston dining scene that has otherwise shifted substantially toward newer, more experimental concepts. Its shrimp and grits sticks closely to a traditional, comfort-food-forward preparation, reflecting the restaurant's broader identity as a preserver of classic Lowcountry cooking rather than a venue for reinterpreting or modernizing the dish the way some of the city's newer restaurants have. The restaurant's name comes from a stray dog who wandered onto the property's porch during its early years and became something of an informal mascot, a bit of local restaurant lore that's remained part of Poogan's identity across its nearly 50 years of continuous operation. For a Charleston shrimp and grits list, Poogan's Porch is the essential "old-school Southern comfort" entry — a nearly 50-year-old Victorian-house restaurant serving traditional Lowcountry shrimp and grits largely unchanged from the dish's classic homestyle roots.
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