Vote For Charleston’s Chef of the Year

Welcome to day two of the 8th annual Eater Awards, honoring the most talented restaurant and bar industry gurus in cities across the world. Here’s how the Eater Awards work: All 24 Eater cities and the national site will award prizes in multiple categories, including but not limited to Restaurant of the Year, Chef of the Year, and Design of the Year. In each category, editors will choose an editor’s choice winner and readers will vote for a reader’s choice winner — all to be announced on December 5, 2017. Editor’s choice winners will receive an illustrious tomato can trophy, as is the tradition around here. This year Eater will further the fanfare, running a splashy feature about every editor’s choice winner throughout the course of the coming year.

Brush up on the details on today’s nominees before voting, if you’d like:

• Sean Brock opened McCrady’s Tavern and reopened McCrady’s late last year, while battling a rare autoimmune disease. He will later go on to open up about his sobriety and recovery while planning to expand the Husk empire.
• It’s been over a little year since Chelsey Conrad helped move Butcher & Bee to a bigger space, but she’s consistently putting out some of the best Middle Eastern plates around, not to mention the famous veggie burger.
• He’s gone from Wise Buck Smoked Meats to Fish to hosting buzzy pop-up Kwei Fei, but David Schuttenberg has made his mark on Charleston.
• Alex Lira helped transform Normandy Farm Bakery into a national sensation with Bar Normandy, proving that small restaurant takeovers can compete with big build outs.
• Rodney Scott brought his brand of pitmaster magic to Charleston by the way of Hemingway, South Carolina. Everyone from across the town lined up for weeks after the opening of Rodney Scott’s BBQ for a taste of pulled pork goodness.

Now, without any further ado, it’s time to vote for the reader’s choice winner in the Chef of the Year category. Polls will be open for 24 hours and will be strictly policed for funny business. Choose wisely: