Red Drum is the most interesting concept in Mount Pleasant: a "South by Southwest" restaurant where the local Southern ingredients of the Lowcountry meet the flavors of chef-owner Ben Berryhill's native Texas, and the room matches the menu. It's a wood-grilled steak by candlelight in the wine room, or crab tostaditas and cocktails in deep sofas around an adobe fireplace under the stars on the patio - the whole place is built around that South-meets-Texas idea, and it works better than the label suggests. Berryhill is the former chef of Houston's Café Annie, and the quail and sausage entrée - South Carolina quail with venison sausage from a Texas ranch - is the plate that encapsulates the whole thing.
The food is genuinely good, and the fried shrimp and the ceviche at the bar are the two things the critics keep pointing to. It's on the expensive side of Mount Pleasant, the dining room can run hot in the summer, and the crowd is local and food-focused rather than touristy. There's a Sunday brunch with soft-scrambled egg and chorizo tacos that's worth the trip on its own, and the wine list has room for the steak-and-bottle kind of evening. It's the kind of place you go when you want dinner to be an event, and it's the kind of place that has been around long enough that "Charleston dining has finally caught up with Red Drum" is a line you can actually say about it.