Carla Hall Reveals Her Favorite Charleston Restaurants—and the Simple Trick She Uses to Find Great Food When Traveling

Carla Hall has a simple question for the people she meets while shopping in Charleston: "What's your favorite place?"

For a chef whose travels typically involve television cameras and festival stages, asking a shopkeeper where to eat offers another view of a city. And during a Charleston getaway last year, Hall got a taste of the local life; she stayed at a friend's downtown house, worked on art, and explored on foot. "I did my art, and we walked around a lot, and we ate, and, really, we were Charlestonians," Hall told Travel + Leisure in a recent interview.

Now, the Nashville-raised, Washington, D.C.-based chef is heading back to the Holy City with something to share. The Food & Wine Classic in Charleston returns Nov. 13 through 15, with chef demonstrations, beverage seminars, and four Grand Tastings featuring upwards of 100 brands and restaurants, and tickets are still available to purchase online . Hall's cooking demonstration, "Carla Bakes: Sweet, Savory, and From the Heart," is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 13, at 10 a.m.

Her planned menu brings together two enduring influences—the South and the places she has traveled. She'll make pecan baklava that evokes pecan pie, plus pide , the Turkish pizza she encourages home cooks to customize. "Everybody loves pizza," she says. She'll also be hosting "Southern Living Maker's Series: Cookies as Canvas" with Ivy Odom on Saturday, Nov. 14, at 10 a.m.

Carla Hall

Favorite hotel?
The Knickerbocker, New York City .

Dream destination?I really want to go to Nigeria because my DNA has informed me that that's where I want to go. That's where my ancestors are from.

Window or aisle seat?

Window.

One destination you could revisit endlessly?

Istanbul.

Favorite Southern dish?The first thing that came to mind was biscuits—I'm very particular, but a good biscuit.

Hall, familiar to viewers of Top Chef, The Chew, and Halloween Baking Championship , says a food festival should encompass its surroundings. In Charleston, that means considering the coastal setting and the history that visitors encounter throughout the city, including its Gullah Geechee heritage, preserved by the descendants of Africans who were enslaved in the Lowcountry.

"I would want every food festival to have its unique stamp on it," she says. That unique quality extends to Charleston's dining scene, where a wide range of acclaimed restaurants serve diverse cuisines. "What's so great [is] it's such a food city, and there are different kinds of food," Hall says.

Across Charleston, that range stretches from Lowcountry classics at High Cotton and locally caught seafood at Chubby Fish to Filipino cooking at Kultura . Leon's Oyster Shop boasts oysters and fried chicken, Tutti Pizza serves New York-style and square pies, and Legami brings Italian pastas to the table. Palmira Barbecue connects Texas smoking techniques, South Carolina whole-hog tradition, and Puerto Rican flavors—a combo that earned it a Michelin Bib Gourmand in Michelin's 2026 American South guide. 

Hall finds recommendations by asking locals, then she saves her discoveries in Google Maps so she can return to them or share them with someone planning a trip. Her own Charleston favorites span several cuisines, with plenty of reasons to return with an appetite. Hall singles out Basic Kitchen for its vegetable options, Millers All Day for brunch and biscuit cinnamon rolls, and Malagón for Spanish tapas and Basque cheesecake.

At home in Washington, D.C., she recommends using the annual RAMMY Awards nominee list as a starting point for that same system. "Just drop it into your Google Maps," she says, so when it's time to choose dinner, there's already a list to consult.

Even for a professional eater, traveling through a foodie destination requires some balance. Hall loves burgers and hot dogs, but she also orders vegetables and gravitates toward sides. Dining with a group helps her try as many things as possible without making every meal a marathon. "We're going to get lots of little things," she says of her strategy. "That way we don't have to eat the whole thing. We don't have to commit."

Of course, dessert still gets its due. Hall wants to acknowledge the work happening in the pastry kitchen, even when she only has room for a taste. "I really want to recognize you. I want to honor your work," she says. "I will order three things and have a bite of each."

Baking is the focus of her latest cookbook,  Carla Bakes: Sweet, Savory, and From the Heart, her first devoted to baking. "I consider baking my casual Friday," Hall says. "It's sort of crafting with food."

The book includes foundational recipes, a chapter on bread, and dishes influenced by her travels for Chasing Flavor . Her pecan baklava illustrates how a recipe can combine inspiration from very different destinations to create one delicious dish. She encourages home bakers to also experiment with flavor without changing the structure that makes a bake work. "Don't change the formula because you need the formula, but change the flavors, make it your own," she says.

Away from the kitchen, Hall has her own travel recipe that she can replicate in destinations around the world: downtown, a thrift store, a bookstore, and somewhere serving street food.

"I want some street food 'something' where the locals are hanging out," she says. "I tend to want to go to restaurants that are in the neighborhoods." She also searches for an excellent hot dog. Her requirements? Some char and a soft bun. "I love a char," she says.

Honey is a favorite souvenir, a habit she traces to tasting honey near Charleston; she says it reminded her of the sweetgrass used in basketmaking. She also looks for brooches and scarves while thrifting—small finds that fit easily into her luggage. The rest of her packing routine includes compact Rothy's shoes and a Muse meditation headband. 

There are still plenty of trips she hopes to take, including a camper journey from Bozeman to Portland. Whenever she's going, some of her favorite travel encounters happen before she even takes off. At an airport restaurant, Hall will ask another solo diner to share a table, making room for a conversation neither traveler planned. "It's nicer when they don't know me as Carla Hall," she says.

For someone whose career has centered on bringing people together through food, that invitation comes quite naturally. "I think that we are at a place where we really need to be kind to people," Hall says.

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