Vern's — Restaurant in Charleston

Overall a great night and would recommend to others but just a couple notes on our experience. First, the atmosphere is cozy and felt pretty intimate with the taper candles and dim lighting. It can get a little loud due to how small the restaurant is as it’s only one room in a renovated house but we weren’t distracted by the noise level. We went for dinner and it’s a small restaurant but we like that. The bar is not a full bar. The cocktails available on the menu are the only ones they can make which is not a huge deal but something to note. Also when you order your meal, they want everything to go in at once. Again, not a huge deal and it made for good staging of the dinner but we are the type of people that like to order a few different things to share and then add on more food if we need so we just had to adjust our usual way of dining (this is not a negative, just something to mention so you are aware when you are reviewing the menu). We started with the yellowfin tuna, bread, and salad. All of these were fantastic! The tuna especially was a highlight. For our mains, my husband got a steak and said great things about it. I got the chicken and it was very good, but I thought it lacked a little bit of uniqueness/depth in the flavor profile. It was maybe a little simple but by no means a bad dish. We ordered the zucchini dish as our side and this is probably the only dish that I would say we didn’t totally like. You really don’t taste the zucchini because the pickled green tomatoes were sooo overpowering. Desserts were fantastic! Two to choose from and we got both and didn’t regret it one bit! After dinner drinks (aside from alcoholic beverages) consisted of only a couple teas and espresso. Overall a very good experience but I felt the menu was a little strict. Maybe something you would see more in NYC but not something we were used to with dining in Charleston. I would have preferred a slightly more flexible cocktail menu and some coffee with desert. But overall, the food itself was a highlight and we would recommend this...

Came here on a Sunday night with no reservation on a Hail Mary we might be able to sit at the bar. Low and behold, the congenial hostess made a miracle happen. She gave us a reserved table on the condition we only stayed for an hour and made it available for the reserved party upon their arrival.

Night started out great and we hadn't even sat down yet. For food we had the escargot, sourdough, beet salad and the pork loin. For drinks we had a beer, a glass of white wine and chamomile tea.

All the food was delicious, the atmosphere exceedingly pleasant and the service kind and helpful. I recommend this place to anyone looking for a real dining experience.

The pork loin is a winner in all fronts: pork, mushrooms and the sauce.

You can have a quiet conversation at this place and still hear the music. I really appreciate that. They had the music dialed in perfect.

Now, a few notes I wish I could tell the chef in private but will say here for lack of a better venue:

The escargot 🐌being a delectable sauce heavy dish coming without bread as a side is deflating and takes away from the experience. 🥖 It is like ordering guacamole and having to order the chips separately. That's what happened to us. The escargot arrived and we asked, where is the bread? We ordered the sourdough but had to wait and stare at the escargot getting cold. I wish the waitress had provided the recommendation.

The bread did not come precut, which for me also felt strange.

The beet salad 🥗presentation, texture and taste were beautiful, delectable and delicious respectively, but the salad pieces themselves rather large. Leafy greens that require you to open your mouth like a dragon to fit them in are too large. I cut them but I shouldn't have to at a place like this.

Overall, if the escargot had come with bread, and the bread had come precut, and the salad pieces had been bite sized, and the wine had come without reminding the waitress, this place would be deserving of a Michelin star, everything js put together really...

Simply one of the best spots in Chuck! Small restuarant has a cute, old-timey vibe. Very few tables in the one story corner building. Cocktails were good even though they dont have a full bar program. Its are meant to be shared family style. Escargot and the sourdough is a must try together. The bread is more like a Naan than traditional sourdough. The mid course is the side, either salad, pasta or veg. Ours was a corn dish with charred swiss chard- incredible flavor. For the mains, wife had a clam pasta dish and I had the Rainbow Trout. The flavors were explosive. On 4th of July weekend this was like a firework show for your mouth. I cant remember the last time every bite on the plated popped with so much flavor! Everything we had was 10/10. Dessert was a flourless choco dish, solid as well. Not much you can do better here.

For apps, side, main, dessert plus booze it brings it to about $100 per person with mains approx. 50+ putting in line with the upper end around town. No question it delivers.

edit/update

Went again. Still a Mic drop. Best pork dish i have ever eaten. It shows up like a little wreath of sliced pork, which is strange until you taste it. Incredible flavor! The carrot dish was unexpectedly one of our favorites. Great thing about Vern’s is the way they meld flavors together are so unexpected, sometimes your favorite items may not have been your first pick on the menu. They...