As it so happens, our anniversary has fallen on the boys’ Spring Break the past few years. That means we’re at the Isle of Palms to celebrate, with access to some amazing dining just over the bridge in Charleston. Jeff and I love finding great places to eat, and we spent a lot of time looking up restaurants owned by famous chefs, Michelin-starred restaurants, and those with great reviews. We narrowed it down to a few contenders and, in the end, decided to eat at 82 Queen in the French Quarter. It has a classic Low Country menu we were both excited about, and great reviews. It also ended up being in a great location: just around the block from the Gibbes Museum and a small independent bookstore. We left a few hours before our reservations so we could walk around and visit both of those spots.
That horse was parked against the prettiest pink building! I’m glad I spotted it and took some pictures. It will definitely become a painting.
Charleston is a great city to walk around in. Admiring the architecture will definitely keep your eyes busy! We stopped in Buxton Books, which is a lovely little bookstore. They had a nice art and design section, which is always exciting. I ended up purchasing one book – An Artist’s Life by Mary Whyte. She is a local watercolor artist and had signed the book and included a little feather inside. How could I resist?
We then went to the Gibbes Museum, but I’ll share about that in another post.
We sat in a semi-enclosed patio at 82 Queen, and it was a delightful evening for doing so. I contemplated the menu for a while and decided in the end to order a couple of appetizers instead of a main course. I ordered tomato pie and Jeff got bar-b-que shrimp and grits.
For my main entrée, I got an appetizer crab cake with a side of cheese grits.
And Jeff got a steak and grits served with fried mushrooms, mashed potatoes, and asparagus.
My only regret was not ordering a vegetable! I really miss it when I don’t have something green on my plate.
Everything was excellent, but my only critique is that the cheese was overboard. I love cheese, but I like it in moderation, just a sprinkle. I ended up scraping most of it off, but that was a small thing. Otherwise, we were thoroughly satisfied!
We shared a lemon mascarpone cake for dessert, and it might’ve been my favorite part of the meal. (I forgot to take a picture.) One of my favorite desserts used to be the lemon cream cake at Olive Garden, and I was so bummed when they discontinued it. I’ve made something similar a few times, but it was nice to be able to get just one slice. This dessert was very similar, and I relished it.
On our way out, I spotted an amazing antique painting of a dog in another section of the restaurant, so I stopped in to snap a picture of it.
A few ladies at a table were watching me as I admired that and the other paintings in the room. One was right over their heads. I could feel them looking at me, silently wondering what I was doing. I told them I paint dogs frequently and couldn’t help but take a closer look at these. They graciously ducked out of the way so I could photograph the one that was behind their table.
I will definitely have to play around with some studies and sketches of these!
Well, I have a bunch of museum photos to share with you, from the Gibbes in Charleston, the Uffizi, and the Pitti Palace during our visit to Florence.
In fact, a conversation about these museum visits led to an amazing gift from one of my aunts that I will post about soon!
You can find more about our previous visits to Charleston here…
Carriage Ride Around Charleston
Dining at Circa 1886
