Low Country Food on Hilton Head Island
Low country food is the cooking of the South Carolina and Georgia coast: shrimp, crab, oysters and rice, with deep Gullah roots.
Shrimp and grits
Shrimp cooked down with bacon or sausage, peppers and onions in a gravy, spooned over creamy stone-ground grits. It started as a simple breakfast in coastal homes before restaurant menus took it up in the 1980s, and every kitchen now has its own version.
Shrimp and grits is the house specialty, on a menu built around Lowcountry and Gullah home cooking that also has a Lowcountry boil, red rice and a fried green tomato stack.
Farm-to-table Southern cooking, where shrimp and grits sits with chicken and waffles and sweet potato biscuits among the dishes diners name most.
Shrimp and grits by the water at the north end, from a seafood menu with a view of Skull Creek and the sunset.
A Coligny breakfast spot with shrimp and grits on a menu of huge biscuits, biscuit flights and a Southern Benedict.
Lowcountry boil and Frogmore stew
Two names for one dish: shrimp, smoked sausage, corn on the cob and potatoes boiled together in a seasoned pot, then poured out onto a newspaper-covered table and eaten with your hands. It is named for Frogmore, a community on St. Helena Island near Beaufort, and is also called Beaufort stew. It is the classic meal for a crowd, which is why several places sell it by the bucket.
Lowcountry boils to take away by the bucket, hot and ready or packed to cook in your rental’s kitchen, with crab legs and crawfish as add-ons.
Seafood boils served by the bucket with corn and potatoes, at a waterfront spot in Palmetto Bay Marina.
Frogmore stew under its old name, plus perloo, she-crab soup and shrimp and grits on Congaree Mills grits, at Shelter Cove Towne Centre.
She-crab soup
A rich, creamy soup of blue crab meat, traditionally thickened with the orange roe of the female crab that gives it its name, and finished with a splash of sherry. It comes from Charleston in the early 1900s, and on Hilton Head it is a starter on most seafood menus.
She-crab soup by the cup or bowl at a big, casual seafood house on the marsh at Jarvis Creek, near the bridge.
She-crab soup is the starter people name first, with shrimp tacos and parmesan grouper, a short walk from Coligny Beach.
A cozy dinner room with a seafood menu hand-written every day, where she-crab soup sits alongside a long list of fresh fish.
She-crab soup, fresh fish and hush puppies on the deck at South Beach Marina in Sea Pines, with live music.
Red rice and perloo
Rice was the Lowcountry’s great crop, and it still anchors the food. Red rice is rice cooked in tomato with bacon or sausage and onion, a cousin of West African jollof rice. Perloo (also pilau or purloo) is rice cooked in one pot with stock and shrimp, chicken or sausage. A Lowcountry Backyard serves red rice with sausage, and Poseidon has a perloo.
Grouper and blackened swordfish served over red rice, plus shrimp and grits with collards and andouille cream, overlooking Broad Creek.
Fried green tomatoes
Firm, unripe tomatoes sliced thick, coated in cornmeal and fried until crisp outside and tart inside. They show up as a starter, a side, or stacked under crab or shrimp.
Fried green tomatoes on a seafood menu that also has oysters and crab cakes, at a lively waterfront spot on Broad Creek with live music.
Fried green tomatoes in a Southern take on eggs benedict, at a family-run room known for breakfast and brunch.
A relaxed golf-club bar in Shipyard with fried green tomatoes on the menu and a covered patio over the course and lagoon.
Oysters
Wild oysters grow in clusters along the tidal creeks around the island. The Lowcountry way to eat them is an oyster roast: clusters steamed over a fire under wet burlap, dumped on a table and shucked by hand, in the cooler months. Restaurants serve local oysters raw and roasted.
Local oysters, shrimp and crab cakes at a seafood house on the docks at Skull Creek that has been serving since 1967.
May River oysters from Bluffton on the half shell, on a coastal menu at Shrimpers Row.
Oysters, crab cakes and shrimp, with a big waterfront deck facing the sunset on Skull Creek.
Gullah dishes
The Gullah Geechee people, descendants of West Africans enslaved on Sea Island plantations, shaped almost everything above: rice cooked one pot at a time, okra, field peas and seafood from the creeks. Hoppin’ John, black-eyed peas cooked with rice and pork, is the Gullah dish eaten on New Year’s Day for luck, usually with collard greens. Learn more about Gullah Geechee culture on Hilton Head.
Family recipes on Marshland Road, including Aunt Hattie’s seafood rice with shrimp, crawfish, crab and conch, and stewed okra and tomatoes.
Southern and Gullah-inspired soul food, with fried chicken, oxtails and crab balls and live music most nights.
Across the bridge in Bluffton, Ma Daisy’s Porch cooks Gullah and Southern family dishes.
About this list
Low country food is the cooking of the South Carolina and Georgia coast: shrimp, crab, oysters and rice, with deep Gullah roots. The Lowcountry is the tidal coastal plain that runs roughly from Georgetown to Savannah, and Hilton Head sits in the middle of it, in Beaufort County.
Lowcountry cuisine grew out of rice plantations, tidal creeks and the West African cooking of the enslaved people who worked them, whose descendants are the Gullah Geechee people of the Sea Islands. It is a coastal branch of Southern cuisine: where inland Southern cooking leans on pork and barbecue, the Lowcountry cooks seafood and rice. Below, each classic dish with what it is and island restaurants that serve it well.
For more of the island’s seafood, see seafood restaurants, and for the history behind the food, Gullah Geechee culture on Hilton Head.
More ways to choose where to eat
Hilton Head Island seafood restaurants by setting: creekside docks, casual baskets, special-occasion dinners and Sea Pines, with phone numbers.
Hilton Head Island seafood markets for local shrimp, fresh fish and oysters, plus steamed shrimp and a Lowcountry boil to go, with phone numbers.
Fried chicken on Hilton Head Island: Southern and soul food dinners, lunch takeaway and chicken and waffles, with hours and phone numbers.
Gullah Geechee culture on Hilton Head: who the Gullah people are, their language and food, the Gullah Museum, Mitchelville, and Gullah heritage tours.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Lowcountry food?
Lowcountry food is the traditional cooking of the coastal South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry, built on shrimp, crab, oysters, rice and corn, with strong Gullah Geechee and West African roots. The best-known dishes are shrimp and grits, Lowcountry boil, she-crab soup, red rice and hoppin’ John.
What is the difference between Lowcountry boil and Frogmore stew?
There is none: they are the same dish of shrimp, smoked sausage, corn and potatoes boiled together. Frogmore stew is the older name, after the community of Frogmore on St. Helena Island near Beaufort. Some people also call it Beaufort stew.
Is Lowcountry cuisine the same as Southern cuisine?
It is a regional part of Southern cuisine. Lowcountry cooking shares grits, greens and fried dishes with the rest of the South, but it centers on seafood and rice from the coast, and on the Gullah cooking of the Sea Islands.
Where can I get a Lowcountry boil to go on Hilton Head?
Sweetwater Steamer on New Orleans Road sells its Lowcountry boil to go, packed in a bucket. A Lowcountry Backyard also has a Lowcountry boil on its menu.
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