Falling Oak Lager, the latest offering from Southern Barrel Brewing, is now available in multiple Sea Pines locations. This dry-hopped lager is named after a tenacious Southern Live Oak that blew over more than 170 years ago on what is now the property of The Sea Pines Resort. The lager is available in the pro shops at Harbour Town Clubhouse and Planation Golf Club, and also on draft at all restaurants in The Sea Pines Resort. 

Slapfish, the nation’s fastest growing seafood restaurant, has opened at 1024 William Hilton Parkway near Sea Pines Circle. Slapfish on Hilton Head is locally owned and operated by the Lomasney family. The restaurant’s marketing materials say it “serves honest flippin’ seafood infused with lots of flavor.” 

LongHorn Steakhouse officially opened its newest restaurant in Beaufort in January. The restaurant celebrated the opening with a “lasso cutting” ceremony. The 5,660-square-foot restaurant seats more than 180 guests and will be led by Amy Otterline as Managing Partner. The restaurant will add more than 60 jobs in Beaufort. 

Construction on the new Burnt Church Distillery began in January. The 20,000-square-foot facility will include a tasting room, a pizza restaurant, a manufacturing building and a rick house to store whiskey barrels. Owners Billy and Sean Watterson expect the facility to create around 27 new jobs.

South-end Italian restaurant Trattoria Divina closed its doors permanently in January. Owners Harry Morales and Tamara Bream posted the announcement to the restaurant’s Facebook and Instagram pages. In the post, they thanked the restaurant’s staff and patrons for seven years in business. 

RLB Distillery will open this spring in a 5,000-square-foot space on Boundary Street. The business will produce rum, vodka, moonshine and bourbon on site at the former K-Mart site in Beaufort Town Center. Visitors will be able to sample the spirits from a room overlooking stills and towers where the process will unfold. The business will include retail sales of merchandise such as shirts and shot glasses and the bottled products. Owners are Lady’s Island residents Brigid and Brian Fackrell. Grain will come from Orangeburg and sugar cane from Hampton.

CHAMBER GALA BRINGS TOP CHEFS TO HILTON HEAD

The stars of the culinary world will be out in force on Feb. 1 for the 2020 Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce Ball, to be held at the Marriott Hilton Head Island Resort & Spa. The nationally recognized chefs will prepare tapas-style dishes alongside Lowcountry chefs. 

Some of the notable names that will be on hand include Marc Murphy, executive chef of Landmarc restaurant in New York who also is a judge on the TV show “Chopped” and the former chef of Windows on the World; Florian Bellanger, the former pastry chef at Le Bernardin in New York and a judge on the TV show “Cupcake Wars;” and George Masraff, a Michelin-starred chef and the former culinary director at Windows on the World. Other top chefs in attendance: Arnaud Briand, Instant Eats owner and former Windows on the World chef; and Martin Doyle, chef at Suilan at the Borgata and former Windows on the World chef. 

PLANT-BASED DIETS GROWING IN POPULARITY

Who isn’t familiar with the old trope that pre-agricultural humans — cavemen, in casual parlance — were big meat eaters? You know, hairy men spearing mammoths and gnawing on half-raw haunches while huddled over flickering fires.

But it turns out that our grunting predecessors might not have been as meat-obsessed as once thought. That theory likely originated because animal bones are better preserved at most paleolithic dig sites than the remains of edible plants, but researchers at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov archaeological site in northern Israel and others are discovering that many of our ancestors ate mostly plants. Nuts, fruits, seeds, roots, leaves and other plants made up as much as 90% of their diet, in fact.

Sigler’s Rotisserie and Seafood is now under the ownership of Chef Anthony Alessi, in partnership with Frank and Laura Gibson. Chef Alessi’s wife and daughter will also oversee restaurant operations. Chef Alessi brings over 40 years of culinary experience to the table. The new menu will include the same items, plus tasty new dishes like Veal Cordon Bleu.