Basic Kitchen

Basic Kitchen is our Zero Proof mecca… and the first restaurant in the country to get a 10/10 TZP score.

Owners Ben and Kate Towill moved from New York City to Charleston in 2013.

Ben is the founder of a restaurant group that includes New York’s renowned The Fat Radish. And Kate was a set designer for everyone from HBO to Wes Anderson.

And they both brought their skills with them down South. Basic Kitchen has a clean, beachy vibe with a faded rainbow painted on the back wall, large rattan pendants hanging from the ceiling and little, pink fringed lamps lining the bar. An old surfboard and vintage oars hanging on the wall add a taste of Wes Anderson-like odd nostalgia.

The food and drinks at Basic Kitchen fit the aesthetic. The menu is vegetable-driven, light and fresh. And the drinks menu is one of the most zero-proof friendly we’ve seen in the country.

In addition to a dedicated “non-alcoholic” section with cocktails and a special kombucha from Charleston’s Dalai Sofia, Basic Kitchen can adapt most any alcoholic drink for non drinkers with Seedlip and other ingredients (we had the amazing Beet Margarita - you’ll find the recipe below). Then there’s the fresh juices and creative hot drinks like the Charcoal Latte and the Matcha Muchacha.

Ben, the owner, told us he’d prefer to have the entire menu non-alc… it’s just hard to build a sustainable business model that way. And our bartender, Aneel, was a non-alc master… he used to tour the world with a sober band (he’s also staged at some of the best bars around the world, like Tokyo’s Bar High Five).

Sometimes you leave a restaurant knowing that place is special… that’s Basic Kitchen. Everything there, including the zero-proof menu, was created with love and care.

And we can’t recommend you visit Basic Kitchen highly enough.