Anson Restaurant — Restaurant in Charleston

07/31/2025 – Anson - on Anson Street This is why I am doing this fun project of exploring the restaurants that Charleston has to offer. It is all worth it when I find a hidden gem like I did last night. Anson has been around for over 35 years and yet I never knew of it. It is very simple looking from the outside. When walking from our garage to the restaurant, we had to pass by the horse stalls that serve as the horse drawn carriages that the tourists partake. But there is no fear of “horse smell” ruining an evening at Anson. This restaurant has it all. It is the Triple Crown of eateries. It has ambience, great service, super friendly staff, and the food is THE BEST I have eaten in my experiences of dining out in historic Charleston. We arrived at 5:30pm in order to have the dining room to ourselves and enjoy the ambiance and service. Our server was K.J. She was a delight. She has been working there for five years and gave us a complete background history on the Anson and its development. The main floor hosts a beautiful bar. The theme is red and black with comfy booths and chairs. Looking at the menu online before we arrived, we were worried that there was not going to be a large choice of meats to choose from. But K.J. informed us that the Anson is known for its steaks. She began listing all the meat entrees that were available. We had too many great choices and now we want to go back and try all of them! So do NOT let the online menu fool you or deter you. We asked that they didn’t rush us, and they did not. We had a 2.5-hour experience wining and dining and loved every minute of it. We were not rushed. We were treated like royalty. And they only seemed concerned with making us enjoy the evening and dining experience. There is an upstairs dining room that was pure elegance. It was like taking a tour of a beautiful old mansion with deep colors and chandeliers and plush furnishings. For ambience, it is a 10++++. Knowing it was our first time there, the chef Shawn sent out a complimentary appetizer of gnocchi drizzled with coconut milk and cheese. It was outstanding. I started with the Shrimp de Johnge - baked Royal Red shrimp, sherry, garlic, breadcrumbs, and herbs. It was a new taste for me but a delight. Ron ordered the fried green tomatoes with bacon jam and pimento cheese. It was delicious and a very generous helping. We had a relaxing break and then our main course arrived. The server, K.J., told us that their filet mignon is known for being a “melt in your mouth” delight. I have heard that term over-used too much where I don’t even hear it any more. BUT this time it was true. Every bite melted in my mouth. And it was cooked perfectly the way I like it. A side of mashed potatoes and I was a happy patron. Ron had the veal parmesan. He also agreed it was the best he had ever had. I had a taste, and it too was light and flavorful. Dessert was a pecan pie served warm with vanilla ice cream on top. By the time we finished, we were floating in an epicurean heaven. I can’t say enough about this place. The staff kept coming by to say “hi”. The chef Shawn came out to our table to see how everything was and to thank us for giving their little gem a try. I think we met every one that worked there. So friendly and warm. They even sent us a round of champagne! The entire time, we were both thinking about coming back and bringing friends with us so they could experience this place also. I want to come back and try more items. I want to come back and dine in each and every beautiful room upstairs and down. So, for us: Service – 10+++++++ Ambiance - 10++++++ Food – 10+++++++ The best we have ever had, and we have had a lot!! Would we go back? In a heartbeat. I was just there last night and yet I yearn to return and see if it was...

This was the most horrible experience I’ve ever had dining in downtown Charleston and I’ve lived here for almost 15 years and eat out REGULARLY!! It was our anniversary dinner. My husband and I got stuck behind an accident on East Bay and called to let the restaurant know we were going to be 3-5 minutes late (we were only a mile away). The maître d’ answered the phone and when I gave him our name and reservation time he said “I know you’re late! You know it too! Get here when you can and if we have time we’ll seat you.” We shrugged it off thinking maybe it was his poor attempt at humor. So we get to the restaurant and we are taking up to our table in the upstairs back room to the right of the staircase. My husband ordered the she crab soup as a starter and I ordered a Caesar salad. The she crab soup was about a half cup serving and my husband said it was pretty tasteless. My salad was just OK at best. My husband ordered the shrimp pasta and I ordered the New York strip special, cooked medium temperature, with potato purée and chard broccolini. I have several autoimmune diseases and cannot eat undercooked meat. I specified this to our server and he verbally stated his understanding. When our meals came there was a pool of blood underneath my steak leaching into my potato purée. I cut into my steak and there were blood clots all through it. I stated to the server assistant that I could not eat my steak this way and asked if they would please bring me another. He took my plate, and moments later brought me the same plate back to the table and said the chef said that it was fine to eat that way. I graduated from culinary school and know that that’s not safe to eat at all. I emailed the restaurant on Saturday but gave them six days to answer due to the bustling dinner service of downtown Charleston. After not hearing back all week I called. I spoke with Phil and this was his response “I don’t necessarily believe your story about our food, service or how your steak was cooked. I’ll speak with our Chef and if I feel it warrants a return call I will give you one, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.” Now I’m going to dispute the charges with my bank. There was a way to handle this and that surely wasn’t it. We paid $165 for dinner to celebrate our anniversary and had the most inexcusable poor experience in any downtown Charleston restaurant we’ve ever had. Definitely won’t...

I had heard good reviews of this place so I thought I would enjoy it. When we called they only had downstairs seating no upstairs seating (which we had been told that if you are given the option to go with upstairs seating). We were seated and immediately it was like a bar crowd: extremely noisy and loud (that was not there fault, we hadn’t been able to get a table upstairs, so we knew what we were getting into). We ordered, but a significant amount of time went by till we got our food. When our food finally came, I was disappointed. I had ordered the grouper and goat cheese smashed potatoes. The grouper was $40, and was significantly overpriced for the amount of fish you got, that being said it was good but not worth $40. The goat cheese smashed potatoes tasted like regular mashed potatoes with the skins on. They were not worth $8! I’m not native to South Carolina so I don’t know exactly what there bathroom law is but the downstairs bathroom sign says “bathrooms” and has a female/male sign, so you know it is a bathroom for men and women. I expected it to be a bathroom with stalls, so I knocked, I didn’t hear a response (but downstairs is so loud that if someone did say something there was no way I would be able to hear it). I then tried the door because I wasn’t able to hear a response (because of the noise). It was locked, so I waited. As I was waiting another person came to use the restroom and had to stand in line. I finally was able to use the restroom. The restroom downstairs is inconvenient and misleading. For dessert we had the almond basket, it is almond toffee shaped as a basket with a vanilla sundae in it. That was an amazing dessert! All in all, I would not come here again.

Pros: -Good grouper -An amazing almond basket

Cons: -Food took a long time -Downstairs is extremely noisy (but we knew this already so that was not there fault) -“Restrooms” sign is misleading and inconvenient -Food is overpriced -Goat cheese smashed potatoes don’t have any trace...