Holistic Soul Food in Charleston, SC

City Paper Review

Alluette's Café belongs to a genre all its own: holistic soul food. This means a lot of different things rolled into one. It's fresh, local produce and seafood. It's slow food. It's organic vegetables and hormone-free, antibiotic-free meat. It's Geechee-Gullah soul food served up with a New Age, whole-foods sensibility.

And it's just plain good. If you want to fully understand what this means, you'll have to visit the little pink building next to Burris Liquors on Reid Street and try it for yourself.

Alluette Jones opened her café on Valentine's Day of this year, with Chef Absalom Thomas by her side in the kitchen. The restaurant attracts a slow but steady stream of customers from various walks of life. On a recent visit, I shared the tiny peach-colored dining room, which has just four small tables, with two committed vegans and a pair of business travelers from North Carolina who had dropped by after hearing a friend rave about the fried shrimp. I know all this because Alluette's is the kind of place that puts its guests surprisingly at ease and gets everyone talking to each other, including Alluette herself.

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