Do you ever consider going to Hilton Head Island, SC for a fresh-out-of-the-oven French baguette or a raspberry tart that’s perhaps gilded with gold flakes and filled with lemon curd? Maybe not, but you might want to reconsider because Hilton Head Social Bakery, with two locations on the island, has been baking that and much more since Chef Philippe Feret and his wife Marissa opened the bakery in 2016. Phillipe was an apprentice in his father's Paris bakery from the age of five, and he soon...

Despite the bio I’m about to share, I think Ray Isle is one of the least pretentious people in the wine world today. He grew up in Houston, and he learned to see wine as an adventure, an adventure that’s taken him all around the world. Ray is the longtime executive wine editor for Food & Wine as well as the wine and spirits editor for Travel + Leisure. He writes Food & Wine’s monthly “What to Drink Next” column as well as regular feature articles for both magazines. His writing has...

Augusta Road in West Columbia, SC, isn’t a storybook setting. Strip malls are lined up down the road, flanking a Wal-Mart and a sprawling old school U Haul campus. But just keep going and turn off the road at the Aldi and there’s a  summer camp style building tucked in some trees and a modest BBQ sign. That’s when you know you’ve reached the city limits, City Limits BBQ to be exact. Owner and pitmaster Robbie Robinson grew up in nearby Red Bank, SC eating his fill of SC Midlands BBQ. While...

According to Saveur magazine, Border Food is defined as Mexican food with a distinct identity —influenced by the cooking of Chihuahua and Texas, but with a number of little twists. Because Texas is so large and diverse, it’s a more nuanced label than the overarching Tex-Mex, and one surprising spot that it is celebrating with abandon is in Greenville, SC. Dayna Lee is the chef and operator of Comal 864, a petite spot with a big heart and a smoking hot flattop. With her clear vision of the...

Chef Nikko Cagalanan was born and raised in the Philippines. After immigrating to the states in 2011 and working as a nurse, he found himself inspired to pursue cooking with the desire to share his passion for Filipino food. He moved to Charleston, SC in 2018 and began Mansueta’s, a series of pop-ups in the city and the region that helped him hone his craft, his culinary point of view, and build his community, and he’s never looked back. His restaurant Kultura opened in 2022 and was promptly...

Hi y’all, It’s Stephanie, I’m excited to share with you another podcast you should check out through this episode of The One Recipe from APM Studios.  On The Southern Fork I've talked to a lot of people about their food and their recipes. Pretty much everyone who cooks aspires to have a clutch of recipes they can make their own. The ones that we send to friends because we know it’s going to work every single time. The One Recipe is about building that library, one recipe at a time. Host...

Hi! Stephanie here. It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, but as we get close to Thanksgiving, I want you to know that I’m thinking of y’all, and I’m thankful for every one of you who listen to The Southern Fork. I’m working hard over here in the background making podcast plans and interview itineraries for 2024, but in the meantime, I wanted to share with you a little audio treat -- an episode of The Broadside from WUNC. Since you’re subscribed to The Southern Fork, you might like to...

Host Stephanie Burt recaps Season 8 of the show, sharing the most listened to podcasts, her favorite bites of the season, and other details to keep the conversation going. Let’s Dig In.

Charleston Wine + Food is a multi-day wine and food festival that takes place the first full weekend each March, and I have covered it as a media person, and/or participated as talent for all of its going-on 18 years excepting one. The following interview took place live in the midst of the Culinary Village at this year’s festival, and I’m sharing it now because I already have the 2024 festival on the brain. Not only is my behind the scenes planning well underway, but tickets go on sale to...

 Although The Southern Fork Summer Tour is over, we still have a few weeks together, and the weather has started to turn in much of the South. I don’t know about you, but soon after I feel that first cool breeze, I can’t wait to have a plate of barbecue. Maybe it’s because in my North Carolina childhood, barbecue “stands” as it were, popped up at church parking lots and auxiliary halls each Autumn, using good food to raise money for good causes, but no matter where I am this time of year, I’m...

Alabama native Scott Peacock is a James Beard Award-winning chef and one of the foremost authorities on American Southern cuisine. He might be best known for his work at Watershed restaurant in Decatur, Georgia, and his partnership with culinary icon Edna Lewis, but his recipes and writing have appeared in numerous publications as well, including The New York Times, Better Homes & Gardens, Gourmet, Food & Wine, and Bon Appetit. Although I was very aware of his reputation, it was...

Despite the name, I was still so unprepared for how very clear much of the water is in the Crystal River region of Florida. From snaking like a teal ribbon around trees and under bridges, to reflecting clouds like a salty mirror, on the day I went out on it, our boat sped closer on its glassy surface to a horizon already dotted with other anchored boats. Every year, fishing folks make the pilgrimage to this area of Florida to dive for bay scallops, and for those who grow up in the region,...

In 1905, Saloon Columbia in Tampa, FL officially became Columbia Restaurant, a place helmed by Casimiro Hernandez Sr. where cigar workers in Ybor City could rest and enjoy Spanish and Cuban food, or snag a sandwich to eat on the job. Through the years, the restaurant grew to envelop the entire city block, and today, the family-owned landmark is Florida’s oldest restaurant and the largest Spanish restaurant in the world with 15 dining rooms and 1,700 seats. Andrea Gonzmart Williams is the...

Rocca, located in the Tampa Heights neighborhood of Tampa, FL, is Chef Bryce Bonsack’s love letter to the family who he worked for and lived with during his tutelage and pilgrimage in Italy. Showcasing fresh handmade pasta, mozzarella pulled tableside, and dry aged meats, Bryce creates an ever changing menu influenced by both classical recipes and modern techniques. A Tampa native, his culinary background includes multiple years of experience working in two Michelin-starred New York City...

The day dawns humid and the waters of Sarasota Bay seem like a glassy mirror reflecting a pale blue sky. There are the sounds of birds as well as the gentle lapping of water up against a boat, sure, but more often than not, those sounds are drowned out by the sounds of fishermen calling out to each other to set the lines as they dock, or the beeping of a refrigerated truck backing up to the loading dock, ready to receive a truckload of fish. This is just a day in the life for Karen Bell of...

I’ve been covering food for close to two decades, and throughout my career, most of the high volume places I visit, and especially those in tourist areas, don’t present menus that follow local seasons, feature local produce, or work with local farms. However, on Anna Maria Island, FL and neighboring Longboat Key, the restaurants of Chiles Hospitality Group: Beach House, Sandbar, Mar Vista, and Anna Maria Bake House, are a delicious exception. Beyond the restaurants, the company also includes...

Founded in 1959 by Inez Hill and Louise Hudson, otherwise known as Mama Hill and Mama Louise, H&H Restaurant in Macon, GA is a Southern institution. In the 70s, Macon was home to the newly minted Capricorn Records, and H&H fed many of the musicians coming through the town, though it is most famous for its founders’ unique friendship with the Allman Brothers Band, where the story goes if the band was high they had to come in through the kitchen door. That friendship took Mama Louise on...

Parnass Savang is a first-generation Thai American who grew up in his parents’ Thai restaurant in the Atlanta suburb of Lawrenceville. A Culinary Institute of America graduate, he came back to Atlanta to cook in some of the best kitchens in the city, including Kimball House, Staplehouse, and the now shuttered Empire State South. When he and fellow chef Rod Lassiter teamed up with dreams of a Thai restaurant, they tested menu items, built capital and a following by becoming one of the most...

Greenville, SC is not only a food-focused destination, it is a place that celebrates the active life through its parks and most notably, its Swamp Rabbit Trail, a 22-mile walking and biking greenway that connects the city to nearby Travelers Rest, SC. About halfway between the cities, close to mile marker 31 is the Swamp Rabbit Café & Grocery. Mary Walsh, along with her co-founder Jac Oliver, began the business in 2011 to provide easier access to local, responsibly grown and sourced food...

Dan Weidenbenner moved to Greenville, SC in 2007 via Furman University. While there, he fell in love with the region and decided to stay, and then with the help of more than 50 volunteers, launched Mill Village Farms in 2012. The farm is located in the Greater Sullivan Community of Greenville and includes 30 garden beds, a 60-foot greenhouse, a commercial kitchen, and a produce-processing facility, and since 2018 has distributed close to 81,000 boxes of produce and provided 400 individual...

Pardon me on this one, but it’s true: we writers love a bookstore. I’ve heard many writers refer to their favorite bookstores or libraries as temples to reading, but one of the South’s most significant spots for cookbook authors, M. Judson Booksellers in Greenville, SC, even kind of feels like a temple, situated dead center in the downtown district in a multi-floor historic building. It’s anything but reverent inside, however. I think revelry is a more apt term, actually, with Ashley Warlick,...

The following is a travel journal entry recorded on location and delivered to you the same day. I hope you enjoy this mini-installment from the road during my Southern Fork Summer, and look for a regular full size interview to drop this Friday.   

Diego Campos, Executive Chef at CAMP, Modern American Eatery, works the chef’s counter like a pro in this Greenville, SC restaurant, chatting and visiting and not looking at all stressed that he and his team are making multiple complicated dishes for multiple tables. He’s just the latest to rise through the ranks of Table 301 Group, a restaurant group with more than 10 restaurants that’s been highly influential in changing the flavor of Greenville’s restaurant scene. The company often takes...

Zachary and Hannah Welton started their great adventure together working in Charleston, SC’s celebrated Husk kitchen before they decided to settle on another coast – the Yucatán. Their time spent living and working in southern Mexico – specifically Hartwood in Tulum – solidified their love for wood burning ovens, bright and bold flavors, and plenty of fresh produce. When they returned to the Lowcountry, they began wood-fired pizza pop-ups around Charleston and quickly garnered an intense cult...