The Best New Restaurants in Charleston, South Carolina - AFAR
"Chef-owner Nikko Cagalanan says, “Not in my wildest imagination did I think that I would open my own restaurant.” Born in the Philippines, he immigrated to the United States in 2011 to work as a nurse and then pivoted to cooking; his first venture, Mansueta’s Filipino Food, was named the best Filipino restaurant in South Carolina in 2022, and he won Food Network’s Chopped in November 2023. What began as a pop-up he started “because I just wanna eat the food that I grew up eating, make it the way I want it, while adding a little diversity to Charleston’s food scene,” moved to a permanent space in 2024, and he earned a James Beard Foundation Award nomination for Emerging Chef. The dishes lean traditional with contemporary accents — the arroz caldo, for example, is inspired by his grandmother’s version but is topped with smoked caviar, mushroom XO sauce, and chili crisp." - Lauren Mowery
