Cultural & Culinary Guide to Savannah, Georgia
- 10 hours ago
- 7 min read
This weekend I'm off again and headed to Savannah for a luxury travel event. I've wanted to visit Savannah since I first watched Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I just rewatched it to get in the mood, and it holds up. The city is essentially the main character of the whole movie. I'll be referencing this article myself as I explore Savannah next week!
Article below from 11/22/21 by Margaret Loftus can be found HERE.
When you only have 48 hours to make the most of Savannah, spending one of them queued up in the blazing sun waiting for a restaurant to open its doors may seem like frittering away precious time. But The Grey, opened in a former Greyhound station by James Beard Award-winning chef Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano in 2015, is still one of the hottest tables in town – and this early bird who neglected to make reservations may just score a seat at the bar. After a warm welcome from the bartender, redemption comes in the form of an Aperol-accented gin rickey, local oysters, duck mousse, and a delightful Lowcountry riff on arancini.
The Hostess City has long prided itself on its hospitality. Settled largely by Irish immigrants, the town developed a fun-loving reputation early on. (Its annual Saint Patrick’s Day parade dates back to 1824 and, pandemic aside, now regularly attracts half a million revelers.) Local architectural historian Jonathan Stalcup recalls an old maxim that sums up the city’s priorities nicely: “If you’re from Atlanta, you’d get asked, ‘What’s your job?’ In Charleston, it’s ‘Who’s your family?’ And in Savannah, it’s ‘What’s your drink?’”
The possible answers to that question have increased exponentially in recent years, with the opening of cocktail dens and chef-driven restaurants offering alternatives to the touristy haunts lining the riverfront. Several, such as Cotton & Rye and Pizzeria Vittoria, are clustered south of Forsyth Park in the cool-kids Starland District, but many have breathed new life into the Historic District’s eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings. A few years ago, the Artillery Bar took over an opulent landmark built in 1896 by the volunteer militia group Georgia Hussars to store munitions. With marble countertops, chartreuse velvet banquettes, and discreet call buttons to ring servers, the lounge is a civilized spot to enjoy a newfangled spritz, such as the Jekyll & Hyde, made with a laundry list of Italian herbal liqueurs and bitters. (Or stick with tradition and order the bar’s take on Savannah’s own artillery punch: a potent concoction of rum, rye, brandy, whiskey, sloe gin, and sparkling wine.) Husk Savannah, an offshoot of chef Sean Brock’s original paean to the South in Charleston, has distinguished itself with a focus on local ingredients, from heritage pork to wreckfish to seasonal vegetables such as a memorable side dish of bok choy – sourced from an employee’s garden – cooked over coals and then seasoned with vadouvan, a French-style curry.
Native son Chris Hathcock returned to the city three years ago to take the helm at Husk Savannah after cooking at top kitchens all over the South, including Atlanta’s Staplehouse. “Savannah’s pretty bumping right now,” he says. “Two years ago, people would ask me where to eat, and I wouldn’t be able to tell them. Now there are so many places that I’d put my stamp on.” The same can be said for hotels, with a slew of stylish accommodations springing up in the past few years like the sleek Perry Lane. In a historic city where stories are currency, the hotel, which was built from the ground up, made up its own based on a fictional muse named Adelaide Harcourt, a worldly Savannahian whose life informed everything from its quirky art collection to the grab-and-go café off the lobby inspired by the erstwhile City Market. With all that’s new, there are more reasons than ever to visit this beautiful city – so beautiful that General Sherman famously decided not to burn it on his pyromaniacal March to the Sea, or so tour guides like to say (another theory is that he spared it because he had a sweetheart in town).
Established by the British in 1733 as a foothold to protect the Carolinas against the Spanish in Florida, Savannah was founded by James Edward Oglethorpe, who originally envisioned the colony as a haven for debtors. He designed the city as a system of “wards” – essentially, small neighborhoods made up of eight lots surrounding a central square. The original “tything and trust” plan designated the northern- and southern-facing lots as residential and the larger eastern- and western-facing lots for civic spaces. The scheme wasn’t enforced, however, and the public or “trust” lots became hot property for wealthy Savannahians who wanted grand houses flanking the square.
Oglethorpe’s layout proves ideal for walking: The compact grid is easy to navigate, and the squares – 22 in all – calm traffic. Plus, those massive, Spanish-moss-draped live oaks that have come to symbolize the city offer ample shade – no small consideration in a place where November temperatures can push a balmy 80 degrees.
Extending south from the Savannah River, the Historic District stretches roughly a mile and a half to Forsyth Park, whose centerpiece fountain framed by live oaks has become a city icon. (It was actually ordered from a catalog 150 years ago – similar fountains can be found in France, Peru, and New York.) And while it doesn’t take long to cover the blocks on foot, a multitude of distractions await: shopping, for starters. The Paris Market & Brocante, on the main drag of Broughton Street, is a highly curated, upscale flea market of sorts in a restored Victorian-era grocery store, selling French-milled soap, antique tables, and everything in between. Several blocks south, Whitaker Street is home to a pocket of design stores, the standout of which is Asher + Rye, where the owners turned an abandoned gas station into a Scandinavian style-meets-breezy beach house concept that carries items such as jute baskets, alpaca throws, and minimalist oak coffee tables.
Of course, knowing the stories behind these historic buildings makes solo exploration that much more fun. Each weekday at 10 am, a small group joins Stalcup at Oglethorpe Square for his 90-minute walking tour, which encapsulates the city’s history through its buildings, from the modest, wood-framed, circa-1760 Christian Camphor cottage – Savannah’s oldest surviving house – to the imposing and heavily ornamented Tomochichi Federal Building. After I returned home to Charleston, I wished I had doubled back and braved the line for a peek inside the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters, now part of the Telfair Museums. Built in 1819, it was the first home in the country to boast a water closet on two floors, which was powered by an elaborate plumbing system that included a rooftop cistern. (The bathrooms went largely unused, as residents preferred the more-convenient-for-them chamber pots.)
History looms large in Savannah, but this is no city preserved in amber. Like the emerging dining scene, the Savannah College of Art and Design keeps things dynamic. Founded in 1978 as an antidote to the city’s slump – after a mass migration to the suburbs in the 1950s, many buildings in the historic core were left derelict despite efforts by local preservation groups – the school has played a major role in preserving the city’s architecture, having rehabbed some 70 buildings for its campus. Indirectly, SCAD’s influence can be felt across town.
“A lot of kids come here and stay,” says Stalcup, who’s also an alumnus. “Being an art school community, every small business essentially doubles as a gallery. At hotels, cafés, even real estate offices, there’s likely to be students’ work on the walls.” On a larger scale, alumni have founded more than 70 successful businesses in the city. Two of them rehabbed the old Starland Dairy in a neglected area south of downtown in 1999, for instance, touching off the revitalization of the now-thriving Starland District, known for its vintage stores and nightlife.
For more of an immersion in the art scene, the SCAD Museum of Art features contemporary works by internationally acclaimed artists and alumni that rotate every six months or so. Visitors are encouraged to engage with the student docents, who are well versed in the artists, including the young woman who pointed out that Sanford Biggers’ use of quilts in several works on display referenced their role as indicators of safe houses along the Underground Railroad.
The docent’s brand of hospitality is also on display back at The Grey. A high-energy bar crowd seems bent on making up for time lost during lockdown, but the service is seamless and low key. Warm light floods in from oversize art deco windows, and a record player tucked into a corner near the bar spins Sade and early Michael Jackson, which erases any doubt that the restaurant’s cool embrace was well worth the wait. Like so many of the newer spots in this town, The Grey – born of a Jim Crow-era bus station and conceived by a Black chef – has recast its story with tasteful success.
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