Welcome to the latest edition of Dish. This issue is all about the past. In it, we travel back in time to 1999 to see how Charleston’s culinary scene has progressed. And suffice it to say, a lot has changed. From mini bottles to artisanal cocktails, fusion foods to farm-to-table, even the way we talk about what we eat has evolved. But it’s not all gastronomic theory, we stuffed this issue full of hunger-inducing images too. In fact, best grab a bite before you read on. Enjoy. -Kinsey Gidick
Ask any veteran Charleston bartender about beer in the late '90s and visions of Bud Light and early faux micro brews will come to mind. Such was the case for Phillis Mair. — Brandon Plyler
When it comes to cocktails, it's almost stunning the difference between what people were drinking in Charleston just 15 years ago and what we are drinking today. — Robert F. Moss
There's no question about it, Carolina's is one of the city's finest." That was the proclamation for Best Restaurant in Charleston City Paper's 1999 Best Of issue. — Kinsey Gidick
When I got my start at Johnson & Wales in 1987, for some reason I knew Charleston would become a culinary destination. I felt like it was on the brink of something, even though back then it wasn't. — Robert Carter
You know the words, you hear them every day — artisanal, craft, house-made and farm-to-table. While the foodstuffs that sustain us have remained relatively constant over the ages, the ways in which we describe and evoke them has undergone ceaseless evolution. — Mark Rinaldi
On the shelf in my childhood kitchen, my mother had a cookbook, published by the local Junior League, called Some Like It South. I took it as a point of pride. — Stratton Lawrence
We've looked to Charleston's near past to assess where we were then in terms of eating and drinking in the city and how we got where we are today. — Robert F. Moss