Savannah

Savannah's table belongs to the Lowcountry, the coastal rice-and-tidewater belt whose cooking was shaped by enslaved West Africans and their Gullah Geechee descendants: rice as a staple grain, okra, benne (sesame), field peas, and the shrimp, crab, and oysters of the tidal creeks. Boarding-house cooking gave the city its most durable institution, the family-style dining room Sema Wilkes ran on Jones Street from 1943, where strangers share a table and platters of fried chicken, butter beans, and cornbread pass in rotation.

The city's older houses trade on architecture as much as menu \u2014 The Olde Pink House occupies a 1771 Georgian mansion, The Pirates' House descends from a mid-18th-century seamen's inn. Leopold's Ice Cream, founded by Greek immigrant brothers in 1919, and the Crystal Beer Parlor, opened at repeal in 1933, mark the immigrant and post-Prohibition strata.

Elizabeth Terry, at Elizabeth on 37th, is generally credited with introducing research-driven regional cooking to Savannah restaurants in the 1980s and '90s. Drinking culture is street-level as well as room-level: the Historic District permits open to-go cups within defined limits.