Boutique hotels and historic restaurants crown this Southern Belle

Savannah is awash with gorgeous hotels and tasty, atmospheric dining opportunities.  Your greatest difficulty will be making a choice.

Types of accommodation fall roughly into one of three categories:  chain hotels ... from luxury down to budget ... boutiques and B&Bs.  The B&Bs in restored homes in the historic district look amazing, but getting in to them requires planning far in advance, and they're all geared to doubles (where our annual girls' trip needs a triple).  We went the boutique route with The Brice, a Kimpton Hotel on the Northeast corner of the historic district.  This is a pricey option, but is about as perfect an example of "boutique" as I've seen anywhere.

This old cotton warehouse turned Coca-Cola bottling plant has been wonderfully converted; simple touches like long sailcloth drapes to mimic pillars and wrought iron set into balconies manage to keep the industrial modernity of the place while also evoking plantations of the Deep South.  The grey and white colour scheme, with the odd pop of bright colour, extends through the hotel and is very much the feel of old Savannah, as are the staff uniforms of linen, seersucker and the occasional madras plaid bow tie.  Homey small touches abound:  signs point to the "living room" rather than the lobby; dogs are welcome and a big water bowl and jar of biscuits greets them inside the front door; bikes are available on loan; free coffee is laid out at breakfast time and the management pours free wine at happy hour.  The laid-back atmosphere means you're likely to meet and mingle with other guests as you're relaxing on the comfy, all-weather sofas in the courtyard.  It all felt more like a trendy house party than a hotel.

The historic district is small enough to be easily walkable; we reached all of the dining options discussed below on foot.

For Sunday breakfast, we discovered the Goose Feathers Cafe.  We'd had visions of a long, lingering brunch accompanied by the enticing bacon bloody Marys we'd heard tell of at the Andaz hotel.  Sadly, upon arrival there we thought the breakfast options looked poor, we discovered the drink was simply a regular bloody Mary with a strip of de-hydrated maple bacon added as garnish and, worst of all, that Sunday laws prohibited any alcohol being served before 1pm.  Locals directed us to the nearby Goose Feathers, where a queue out the door and beautiful options on current diner's plates told us we were on to something.  The breakfast menu includes expected items like pastries, breakfast "sandwiches" combining eggs, sausage, bacon, etc, omelettes and daily specials.  I went for the special shrimp and grits, which fulfilled the desire for local comfort food, yet kick-started the day with a well-judged lacing of jalepeno.

Elegant lunch options are The Collins Quarter Cafe and The Gryphon Cafe.  They're both just off

historic residential squares, well away from the main strip of bars and restaurants in the market district, so manage to have a quieter, less touristy feel about them.  Collins is a relatively new place, and one of the tourism office people told me she'd been wanting to go since it was getting great reviews.  It's a clean, airy dining room with friendly staff dishing up simple food that celebrates its farm-to-table heritage, but mixes up the local sourcing with exotic elements.  I had, for example, a Moroccan scramble with house-made merguez sausage, and ras al hanout scrambled eggs over chickpeas.  It was just a pinch of chili and a few shakes of salt away from perfection.  Tastes of the local catch (cubes of fried fish mixed with Mexican elements and served on a tortilla) and the smashed avocado on toast were equally impressive.  In retrospect, our quick Saturday lunch should have been at Goose Feathers, and our lingering Sunday brunch (sans bloody Marys) would have been better here.

We only stopped for drinks at The Gryphon, but the lunch menu looked good and the atmosphere is exceptional.  It's set in an opulent, late-19th century pharmacy, with dark wood shelves and service counters intact and an ornate stained glass dome overhead.  A player piano pumps out classics from one corner, and there's a raised area where you can sink into wingback chairs.  It's very much a ladies' lunch/tea shop sort of place. It's owned and run by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), which owns buildings throughout town, and staffed by students.  Note: because of the student involvement there's no alcohol license.  After eating, you can nip across the street to the SCAD shop, an art gallery where students and alumni sell their work in a variety of media.

For our main meals we opted for two of Savannah's most classic, established restaurants:  Garibaldi's Cafe and The Old Pink House.  (We didn't realise until after we'd dined at the first that they're sister restaurants.)

As its name implies, Garibaldi's menu has a slight Italian skew, but I'd call it a classic fish and steak restaurant with influences from around the world.  It's signature dish, for example, would be at home in an upscale Thai restaurant.  Evidently people drive for miles for this crispy flounder with its sweet, sour and spicy sauce spiked with coriander.  I made that lucky menu choice and understand why the dish is famous.  It was the best of all the fine things I consumed in Savannah.  Elsewhere on the table, Denver ribs and Savannah shrimp and lobster were good, but not as good as my flounder.

The restaurant itself, like The Gryphon, is a sight to behold.

This time you're in an old firehouse, converted to an elegant dining room with a pressed tin ceiling, columns, mirrors and an ornate late 19th century bar.  It's black and gold and elegant while also being a bit louche, as if courtesans were waiting to entertain the great and the good upstairs.  It also features some of the finest service we've ever had on any of our trips, with the team giving us great advice on menu choices, working to get us out in time for our 8pm ghost tour, and sending us off with our excess wine safely transferred to go cups.  There's a lot of drinking while walking in Savannah, but I doubt many plastic cups hold a pouilly fuisse of that quality.  You'd expect no less from these girls' trips, right?

We had far more time to linger at the Pink House since that was the only event on the agenda for the evening, and was a belated celebration of my birthday.  (The last, I trust, of a jubilee year that's now stretched to 16 months!)  Even in Europe, there aren't many restaurants that allow you to dine in such historic surroundings.  This is one of the oldest buildings in town, little changed from its original
form as an elegant Georgian town house of 1789.  Indeed, having considerably more buildings of that provenance in London, I was surprised to see that the Georgia colonists certainly didn't seem to be behind the times.  The architecture and amenities included by the builder, James Habersham Jr., weren't that different from its contemporaries in the mother country.  The only obvious difference I noted was the treacherously shallow tread on the stairs, which almost sent me flying headlong into the entrance hall at the end of the meal.  I somehow managed to regain my balance at the last minute; I like to think it was Habersham's ghost, who's supposed to turn up frequently and who loved to entertain, who extended his hospitality to not letting me break my neck.

The current owners have added a large garden room onto the back which extends the possible covers, and they've done a good job retaining the Georgian feel.  But if you're going to dine here, make an effort to plan far enough in advance to be in the main house.  Tables are generously spaced, lights are low, there's plenty of candlelight and 18th century portraits stare down benignly.  It's tremendously atmospheric.  There's an equally characterful bar in the cellar, all rough stone, dark wood, stained glass and more candlelight.  It's an English West Country pub as we all fantasise them to be, rather than any actually are.  They feature a live pianist, and the same menu as upstairs with no reservations, so if you haven't planned ahead and want to try the place, this is a good option.

We started out downstairs for drinks; their signature Pink Ladies make a grand start to the evening.  (And, admittedly, might have contributed to the danger of the stairs.)  In what was once a grand bedroom on the top floor, we settled around a table overlooking Reynolds Square and launched into a feast of Southern cuisine.

Even though I lived in Texas for three years and was an avid subscriber to Southern Living magazine, it didn't occur to me that "Southern" was a distinct and potentially gourmet cuisine until I went to Washington D.C.'s Vidalia (reviewed here).  I loved it, and haven't had anything like it since, so was delighted to find the same spirit in the Pink House menu.  Our starters included more of that ubiquitous and tasty Southern shrimp (here in a classic cocktail), a salad with goat's cheese and candied Georgia pecans and some exceedingly wicked balls of deep fried jalepeno macaroni and cheese.  Once again I felt that I made the winning menu choice with a pork tenderloin, beautifully complemented by collard greens that had simmered for a good, long time with bacon, and sweet potato, all robed in a maple pecan sauce that was both sweet and a bit spicy.  Hillary's fried chicken tasted exactly as my grandmother's used to.  Indeed, the staff reported that the chef soaks the chicken overnight in buttermilk, just as Nana did. Mahi mahi stuffed with crab was an elegant lighter choice.

We split a couple of desserts, both of which celebrated the native pecan.  The pecan pie was the best I've ever had, and the praline pecan basket with vanilla ice cream was a gourmet take on simple ingredients.  All this fine food came with a great wine list and a serving team as good as the impressive one the night before.  We had a marvellous time, and found ourselves chatting to the staff for so long we were one of the last parties out the door.

At which point, I'll stick to my story and say that Mr. Habersham helped me down the stairs and into the night.  Thereby preserving me to want to come back to dine and explore this gorgeous city again.