Vote For Charleston’s Chef of the Year

Welcome to day two of the 9th 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, 2018. 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:

• Evan Gaudreau obsesses over natural levain dough and unexpected toppings to make the pizza really pop at Renzo. He’s also to thank for Fernet ice cream.
• James London makes the bounty of the oceans interesting over at Chubby Fish.
• Orlando Pagán stepped in at McCrady’s Tavern to bring the restaurant into a post-Sean Brock world.
• Shaun Brian Sells took over Parcel 32 before opening to bring the flavors and history of coastal Carolina to King Street.
• Jim Stein moved into the executive chef position at McCrady’s to make the Southern tasting menu restaurant more his own with touches of chef Sean Brock’s former leadership still on the plates.

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: