Husk just got a national shout-out, and it came from the most famous Charlestonian with a microphone. People magazine named the downtown restaurant South Carolina's pick in its "Celebrity Hometown Favorites" feature, one spot per state, each vouched for by a famous local. Charleston's champion: Stephen Colbert, who wrapped his 11-year run on The Late Show in May and apparently still thinks about the fried chicken skin.
"Husk has fantastic fried chicken skin and watermelon salad that's really delicious," Colbert told Charleston's Convention and Visitors Bureau, in a quote People resurfaced. "I like that everything there is focused on being from south of the Mason-Dixon Line."
Here's the thing: Husk didn't need the boost. Sixteen years in, it helped write the modern Southern-food playbook, the one where the menu changes daily and everything is grown or raised below the Mason-Dixon. It already landed at No. 15 on Robb Report's "100 Greatest American Restaurants of the 21st Century" last fall, and made Michelin's new American South guide. Founder David Howard has since taken the concept to Savannah and Nashville.
So the Colbert nod is less a discovery than a confirmation. The funny part is the company it keeps. The same feature put Leopold's Ice Cream in Savannah back on the map via Elle Fanning, and sent Zach Galifianakis to a comfort-food spot in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. But Charleston got the one with the late-night pedigree. For a city that exports its food reputation as aggressively as its real estate, having Colbert plant his flag at Husk is the kind of free press you can't buy. Order the chicken skin. The man's not wrong.
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