Beach Blog Restaurant Spotlight: Traditionally Innovative Dining at Carriage House Club
By Becky Billingsley
Litchfield Plantation's Carriage House Club offers gracious dining in impeccable historic surroundings, with food prepared by one of the Grand Strand's best chefs.
The restaurant has an annual membership fee, which is $45. Anyone can be a member, and benefits include food, marina and room rental discounts. Driving to the Carriage House Club is a singular treat: you pass under the graceful old branches of an avenue of live oak trees, and at the road's end is a lovely old mansion.
Lodging is vastly different from that of Myrtle Beach oceanfront hotels.
That mansion is circa 1750, and inside are three rooms for rent. Each room contains unique period furniture, and one room has its own living room, complete with fireplace, and access to a second-floor balcony with rocking chairs where you can sit and look out upon the avenue of live oaks. The house has a common downstairs living room and a modern and roomy, fully-equipped common kitchen. There is even a resident ghost and a haunted staircase.
The Plantation House is one of several lodging options on the property, and the house is just a few steps away from the Intracoastal Waterway and the Carriage House Club. The restaurant actually is an old carriage house, although its interior is as sleek and graceful as a thoroughbred.
The Carriage House main dining room is ringed by windows overlooking the grounds. A side room is perfect for large groups, while some people prefer lighter dining in the bar area. The bar is in a separate ell from the dining room, and an outdoor terrace with 40 seats is beside a gorgeous tabby cistern.
Since he is one of only two Certified Executive Chefs in the Grand Strand area, diners expect something special from Chef Robert Beuth. He delivers several special somethings, and fresh, local and seasonally sumptuous are the watchwords in this menu that's heavy on seafood and garden delights.
After only several months on the job at the Carriage House, Chef Beuth has been pleasing restaurant diners and those who enjoy his fare at the many weddings and other banquets held at the property. The impeccable grounds are perfect for beautiful receptions amidst blooming azaleas under massive Spanish moss-draped live oak trees. Almost all the herbs he uses are grown right outside the dining room's window.
The chef's menu changes seasonally to take advantage of whatever produce and proteins are freshest. Currently choices include Braised Beef Cassoulet; Hudson Valley Foie Gras over brioche French toast with candied pecans, pomegranate molasses, and apple and onion chutney; and Pan Seared Diver Scallop over a wild mushroom and apple smoked bacon salad with a sun choke and Parmesan custard and brown butter Hollandaise sauce.
The best part of these thoughtful dishes is that they are as approachable as the chef himself.
He grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, population about 30,000, the oldest of two boys and a girl. He worked in his father's four restaurants, washing dishes after baseball practice. Finally, one day someone needed help peeling carrots, so Rob peeled. Later he was allowed to prep salads, and he prepped.
After graduating high school in 1996, Chef Beuth took culinary arts classes at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield, and at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island. He worked at his father's restaurants for a couple of years, and was head chef at one of them. At age 22, he left the family restaurants and has climbed the culinary ladder ever since.
His first job in Myrtle Beach was as a line cook at Sea Island Inn, and during his three years there ascended to head chef. But the Sea Island was closed for extensive renovations, so Rob left to work as a sous-chef at the Ocean Club at Grande Dunes. He was there six months before trying out the culinary scene in Florida, but he missed Myrtle Beach. After eight months in Florida, he heard the executive chef position at Grande Dunes Ocean Club was open, and he was hired in 2007. In 2008 the young chef completed his journey to become a Certified Executive Chef, and he has earned several gold medals at area American Culinary Federation competitions, including a first-place win in Charleston this year.
Now at the Carriage House Club, Chef Beuth serves salads such as Butter and Brown Sugar Poached Golden Beet Salad with toasted pistachios, goat cheese, baby greens and black pepper vinaigrette. His cool weather entrees include his gold medal award-winning South Carolina Stuffed Quail with apple smoked bacon, wild mushroom and caramelized onion stuffing, herbed risotto, wilted spinach and natural jus; Mustard Crusted Murrells Inlet Flounder over lobster ragout with caramelized onions, beech mushrooms and sweet peas with lemon and herb aioli, black pepper vinaigrette and basil pesto; and his weekly house-made pastas.
Litchfield Plantation's Carriage House Club is off Kings River Road in Pawleys Island at 96 Gathering Lane. Call (843) 237-9322 for reservations; dinner is from 6-10 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, although the time and days change seasonally.
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