Just was talking about this experience to my husband today about how me and my daughter had came to this restaurant years ago to eat when visiting Charleston and when I went to find the name of the place I looked it up and read these reviews. I knew I wasn’t crazy!! My story was me and my daughter were seated and she was QUIETLY on the phone. Mind you I’m extremely courteous and made sure she was playing it very quietly, which shouldn’t have mattered anyways because the atmosphere was loud. Anyways I was approached by the manager and threatened that if my child can’t turn her phone down that we would need to leave, I was in disbelief bc I knew it wasn’t loud enough for anyone to hear. I obviously knew it was racism, I am white, however my daughter is mixed and was the only mixed child in there so I saved them the stress and said that’s fine we will cancel our order and leave, I can’t believe I just so happened to find the name and read THE SAME EXPERIENCE that someone else had. I only didn’t write the review before because I thought maybe somehow I was crazy for assuming that but now I know I’m not! & MIND YOU THIS WAS THE MANAGER/OWNER of this place that approached me, so nothing can be fixed with this place. Such a shame. Years later and this is still happening.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
Tom Clark
All in all it was a great meal, the experience was great. However it was quite expensive for the portions.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 4
Service: 5
Jonathan Cassella
We have lived in Charleston for the past five years and this was by far the most amazing dinner experience we have had. We had the pleasure of having Bryan and Francesco wait on us and they provided us with top notch service. The menu was to die for and I personally went with one of the taste menus (Cooper) coupled with the wine pairings. The food was beyond delicious. The sea bass, wagyu, and Soufflé were three of the five courses which were my absolute favorite. Anne was our Sommelier and had so much knowledge of the wines and paired them really well. Throughout the dinner, the general manager, Mark Severs, was amazing. He had the entire restaurant in complete control and would walk the floor during service. He would check on tables as well to ensure everyone was well taken care of.
After dinner, Francesco was kind enough to go outside and take our picture so we could remember this special night.
We had an amazing time and can’t wait to go back!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Spam Me Forever
Wanted to come here for a long time. I came for the New Years party dinner. I had the wine course along with the tasting menu. As I do not eat beef they accommodated me. As a Chef from Philadelphia I found the food to be mediocre. However the wine course was spectacular. I as graduate of the National Wine School I was impressed by the sommelier knowledge and selection of wines. Too bad the food did not compliment the wine.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 3
Service: 5
Margo Morris
My boyfriend and I got the Ashley course, we had a great night. It’s a beautiful spot!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Ashley Schneider
This dinner, of all our dinners in Charleston, was more in the name than the dining experience. Our server acted pretentious and had an arrogance about him. The dinner served was good, however the lack of decent service clearly outweighed the food, which is terribly sad. I’m sure Circa 1886 would be appalled by their servers behavior. To finish the evening, after the lack of decent service, we asked that he (the sever) take a photo as we were celebrating a special occasion and he ran off and hid in a side hallway. Another server passed by, we asked her, and she kindly obliged. When visiting Charleston, the Wentworth Mansion is breathtakingly stunning, however, unfortunately, Circa 1886 appears to be more of a tourist stop than a true fine dining experience with well trained staff who have been taught proper etiquette.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 4
Service: 2
Matt Bailey
Everything was fantastic, Bryan was an amazing server. This was my first time trying fine dining and I can’t thank everybody at Circa 1886 enough for making my birthday special. The food was fantastic my favorites were the sweet potato gnocchi and the desert - a touch of vanilla and I’m normally not a dessert person. I can’t wait to go back.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Joe Brock
Elegant restaurant with interesting fixed and al a carte menu. Solid wine and Alcohol selection.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
heshey uszerowicz
Overall such a fun experience with the meal, and the wine pairing was exceptional
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Cristina Bajora
Terrible experience – discriminatory and dishonest management.
I rarely leave bad reviews, but what happened here was unacceptable. The manager, Mark, repeatedly bothered me over absolutely nothing. My child was quietly sitting on an iPad, not disturbing anyone, not moving around, not bothering a single person.
Meanwhile, other tables were talking loudly, laughing, and creating real noise — yet somehow that was fine. Instead, so called “ manager “ Mark chose to single out my child and claimed he could “hear the iPad from two rooms away,” which is simply not true and honestly insulting. That statement alone shows how exaggerated and dishonest the situation was handled.
It felt targeted, uncomfortable, and completely lacking in empathy or basic human decency. Any place that cannot show understanding toward a child who is calmly self-regulating should seriously rethink who they put in charge.
Food doesn’t matter when the management makes you feel unwelcome and judged. We left feeling upset, disrespected, and disappointed. I will never return and do not recommend this place to families — especially those with special-needs children.
It was a 7.85/10. We sat at a table off to the side of the bar and got one of each tasting menu. The food was great and stronger with each course. Did not care for the amoush boosh. My only nit to pick would be the man at the bar who was wearing surgical gloves and was using them to drink his drink, and then changing them each time he took a sip. He also kept his motorcycle helmet at the bar which was unsightly. He ruined the vibe kinda. Clearly a regular. Also kept his phone and was using it inside of a ziplock bag. He was kind of bugging me out. Would go back.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 4
Sarah Henry
Came in for our 1 year anniversary, amazing experience, our server Francesco was amazing knowledge on point, very personable Great experience, can’t recommend it enough!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Jeffrey Campbell
Tl;dr expensive and just not that good.
We went for Christmas Eve dinner, and we're sat at a small corner booth in the bar area. The atmosphere was really nice, soft music playing, other customers all talking at reasonable volumes, easy to talk, pleasent to hangout. That is unfortunately about the most positive part of the visit.
We sat down, the booth itself is so old and sinking, it was not at all comfortable to sit in. We ordered a couple drinks, and reviewed the two tasting menu options. A note that may be important for future dinners, no exclusions or changes are able to be made to the tasting menus. That's fine, not usual. The tasting menus read like they'd be fairly good, we ended up both ordering the same tasting. The 6-7 course tasting was the served over the next 2-2.5 hours, with long gaps between servce of courses. It felt so slow.
The food itself was, fine, at best. Nothing bad, but sitting here 2 days later, I don't remember any of it beyond maybe the main proteins. At the price point, $400 for 2 tastings and a few glasses of wine. I would expect much more and much better.
This place is trying to be a Michelin Star place, but is lacking in all the details. I don't see any way we ever return to Circa 1886.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 2
Service: 2
Tim Goodson
The best spicy margaritas in town!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 4
Service: 5
Garrett Frederick
Wonderful food and experience! Lots of incredible flavors, and great hospitality. Sean offered top notch service, and he absolutely made our experience better!
Just was talking about this experience to my husband today about how me and my daughter had came to this restaurant years ago to eat when visiting Charleston and when I went to find the name of the place I looked it up and read these reviews. I knew I wasn’t crazy!! My story was me and my daughter were seated and she was QUIETLY on the phone. Mind you I’m extremely courteous and made sure she was playing it very quietly, which shouldn’t have mattered anyways because the atmosphere was loud. Anyways I was approached by the manager and threatened that if my child can’t turn her phone down that we would need to leave, I was in disbelief bc I knew it wasn’t loud enough for anyone to hear. I obviously knew it was racism, I am white, however my daughter is mixed and was the only mixed child in there so I saved them the stress and said that’s fine we will cancel our order and leave, I can’t believe I just so happened to find the name and read THE SAME EXPERIENCE that someone else had. I only didn’t write the review before because I thought maybe somehow I was crazy for assuming that but now I know I’m not! & MIND YOU THIS WAS THE MANAGER/OWNER of this place that approached me, so nothing can be fixed with this place. Such a shame. Years later and this is still happening.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
All in all it was a great meal, the experience was great. However it was quite expensive for the portions.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 4
Service: 5
We have lived in Charleston for the past five years and this was by far the most amazing dinner experience we have had. We had the pleasure of having Bryan and Francesco wait on us and they provided us with top notch service. The menu was to die for and I personally went with one of the taste menus (Cooper) coupled with the wine pairings. The food was beyond delicious. The sea bass, wagyu, and Soufflé were three of the five courses which were my absolute favorite. Anne was our Sommelier and had so much knowledge of the wines and paired them really well. Throughout the dinner, the general manager, Mark Severs, was amazing. He had the entire restaurant in complete control and would walk the floor during service. He would check on tables as well to ensure everyone was well taken care of.
After dinner, Francesco was kind enough to go outside and take our picture so we could remember this special night.
We had an amazing time and can’t wait to go back!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Wanted to come here for a long time. I came for the New Years party dinner. I had the wine course along with the tasting menu. As I do not eat beef they accommodated me. As a Chef from Philadelphia I found the food to be mediocre. However the wine course was spectacular. I as graduate of the National Wine School I was impressed by the sommelier knowledge and selection of wines. Too bad the food did not compliment the wine.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 3
Service: 5
My boyfriend and I got the Ashley course, we had a great night. It’s a beautiful spot!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
This dinner, of all our dinners in Charleston, was more in the name than the dining experience. Our server acted pretentious and had an arrogance about him. The dinner served was good, however the lack of decent service clearly outweighed the food, which is terribly sad. I’m sure Circa 1886 would be appalled by their servers behavior. To finish the evening, after the lack of decent service, we asked that he (the sever) take a photo as we were celebrating a special occasion and he ran off and hid in a side hallway. Another server passed by, we asked her, and she kindly obliged. When visiting Charleston, the Wentworth Mansion is breathtakingly stunning, however, unfortunately, Circa 1886 appears to be more of a tourist stop than a true fine dining experience with well trained staff who have been taught proper etiquette.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 4
Service: 2
Everything was fantastic, Bryan was an amazing server. This was my first time trying fine dining and I can’t thank everybody at Circa 1886 enough for making my birthday special. The food was fantastic my favorites were the sweet potato gnocchi and the desert - a touch of vanilla and I’m normally not a dessert person. I can’t wait to go back.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Elegant restaurant with interesting fixed and al a carte menu. Solid wine and Alcohol selection.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Overall such a fun experience with the meal, and the wine pairing was exceptional
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Terrible experience – discriminatory and dishonest management.
I rarely leave bad reviews, but what happened here was unacceptable. The manager, Mark, repeatedly bothered me over absolutely nothing. My child was quietly sitting on an iPad, not disturbing anyone, not moving around, not bothering a single person.
Meanwhile, other tables were talking loudly, laughing, and creating real noise — yet somehow that was fine. Instead, so called “
manager “ Mark chose to single out my child and claimed he could “hear the iPad from two rooms away,” which is simply not true and honestly insulting. That statement alone shows how exaggerated and dishonest the situation was handled.
It felt targeted, uncomfortable, and completely lacking in empathy or basic human decency. Any place that cannot show understanding toward a child who is calmly self-regulating should seriously rethink who they put in charge.
Food doesn’t matter when the management makes you feel unwelcome and judged. We left feeling upset, disrespected, and disappointed.
I will never return and do not recommend this place to families — especially those with special-needs children.
Service: 1
Restaurantji Recommends
It was a 7.85/10. We sat at a table off to the side of the bar and got one of each tasting menu. The food was great and stronger with each course. Did not care for the amoush boosh. My only nit to pick would be the man at the bar who was wearing surgical gloves and was using them to drink his drink, and then changing them each time he took a sip. He also kept his motorcycle helmet at the bar which was unsightly. He ruined the vibe kinda. Clearly a regular. Also kept his phone and was using it inside of a ziplock bag. He was kind of bugging me out. Would go back.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 4
Came in for our 1 year anniversary, amazing experience, our server Francesco was amazing knowledge on point, very personable Great experience, can’t recommend it enough!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Tl;dr expensive and just not that good.
We went for Christmas Eve dinner, and we're sat at a small corner booth in the bar area. The atmosphere was really nice, soft music playing, other customers all talking at reasonable volumes, easy to talk, pleasent to hangout. That is unfortunately about the most positive part of the visit.
We sat down, the booth itself is so old and sinking, it was not at all comfortable to sit in. We ordered a couple drinks, and reviewed the two tasting menu options. A note that may be important for future dinners, no exclusions or changes are able to be made to the tasting menus. That's fine, not usual. The tasting menus read like they'd be fairly good, we ended up both ordering the same tasting. The 6-7 course tasting was the served over the next 2-2.5 hours, with long gaps between servce of courses. It felt so slow.
The food itself was, fine, at best. Nothing bad, but sitting here 2 days later, I don't remember any of it beyond maybe the main proteins. At the price point, $400 for 2 tastings and a few glasses of wine. I would expect much more and much better.
This place is trying to be a Michelin Star place, but is lacking in all the details. I don't see any way we ever return to Circa 1886.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 2
Service: 2
The best spicy margaritas in town!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 4
Service: 5
Wonderful food and experience! Lots of incredible flavors, and great hospitality. Sean offered top notch service, and he absolutely made our experience better!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
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