The Best New Restaurants in Charleston, South Carolina - AFAR
"“Not in my wildest imagination did I think that I would open my own restaurant,” says Kultura chef-owner Nikko Cagalanan. Born in the Philippines, Cagalanan immigrated to the United States in 2011 to work as a nurse, then pivoted to cooking. Food & Wine named his first venture, Mansueta’s Filipino Food, the best Filipino restaurant in South Carolina in 2022, and in November 2023 he won Food Network’s Chopped show. Next came Kultura, a pop-up he started, he says, 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.” Kultura moved to a permanent space in 2024, and Cagalanan earned a James Beard Foundation Award nomination for Emerging Chef. His dishes lean traditional, with contemporary accents: The arroz caldo, for example, is inspired by his grandmother’s version, but he tops it with smoked caviar, mushroom XO sauce, and chili crisp."
