Baltimore STYLE Magazine recently visited the Holy City to do a “Food Network-lovers tour” to prepare for the new accessibility between Charleston and Baltimore via Southwest Airlines. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of Food Networks stars and eat where they dined and stayed in Charleston. From Giada de Laurentiis, Rachael Ray and Alex Guarnaschelli to Iron Chef, Best Thing I Ever Ate and Good Eats, writer Joe Sugarman accomplished his goal while in town.

Sugarman managed to visit FIG, Hominy Grill, McCrady’s, Charleston Place, Jack’s Cosmic Dogs, Poogan’s Porch, Jestine’s Kitchen, Joseph’s, and even took a Culinary Tour of Charleston.

FIG has been a hot dish in Charleston since it opened eight years ago— and it’s no stranger to food TV stars. Bourdain ate here in 2007 on his own dime when he was in town filming “No Reservations.” Chef/TV host Alex Guarnaschelli (“Alex’s Day Off,” “Chopped”) gushed about Lata’s hanger steak with agrodulce sauce on “Best Thing I Ever Ate” last spring.  (“A transformative moment,” she called the Italian sweet-sour sauce.)  In 2009, the James Beard Foundation named Lata Best Chef in the Southeast.

The slow-food, locavore movement reigns at FIG, and nearly everything here, from the locally caught grouper to the Brussels sprouts, have been sourced nearby. I can’t resist the oysters on the half-shell served with a cabernet mignonette, especially after the bartender tells me they’re delivered by a waterman who lives on a houseboat above the oyster beds. They’re some of the freshest, most favorable bivalves I’ve ever tasted. I also dig into the crispy pork trotters, “high-end scrapple,” as Ryan describes the popular dish. Yes, it’s pig’s feet, he later divulges, but the sautéed silver-dollar-sized disc topped with a fresh fried egg and marinated lipstick peppers, is salty and tangy and tasty enough to give a guy a foot fetish.

Jack's Cosmic Dogs