Restaurant Review: Stella’s Southern Bistro

Off busy Fairview Road in Simpsonville, Stella’s Southern Bistro is a fresh, modern oasis of cuisine that takes its inspiration from the Lowcountry and other parts of the American South.

Stella’s front door opens into the bar, an inviting space where several gentlemen perched on stools are lunching right at the counter, and the neighborhood tavern atmosphere boasts an attractive modern combination of styles. Robin’s-egg-blue walls with white bead-board accents create a bright framework for navy booths along one wall, where tables are covered with white linen and topped with butcher paper and contemporary glass and ceramic vases. Cheerful paintings of cartoonish roosters on the walls bring whimsy to the contemporary chic of Stella’s.

Owners Jason and Julia Scholz, both young veterans of the Charleston restaurant scene, have taken their combined years of culinary experience to create a clever menu that meshes southern comfort food honed with a light hand and elegant fusion dishes like honey-ginger-glazed duck breast and herb-seared tuna filet (served on the dinner menu with olive tapenade, braised fennel, basil mashed potatoes and lemon crème fraîche).

As we peruse our menus, a parade of chicken pot pies, deconstructed—a bowl of steaming goodness, topped with a fluffy biscuit—emerges from the kitchen. Served with soup or salad and a beverage, the reasonable lunch is decidedly popular. Other visually well-composed dishes streaming by our table display a certain finesse from chef Scholz, who has been featured in a number of national publications. But on this chilly day, a cup of Charleston she-crab soup and a roasted turkey Hot Brown on the specials list seem just the thing to fill the belly.

Delicate and buttery in flavor, the crab soup is perfection in a cup. The thin-but-rich bisque maintains the sweet crustacean flavor, while bits of crab at the bottom remain tender. My dining companion and I share the smoked pulled-pork spring roll, which comes presented with a colorful corn salad and avocado cream on a wedge of iceberg lettuce. A generously sized appetizer, the roll is stuffed with what appears to be finely chopped or ground pork rather than pulled, and the overzealous use of either an acrid spice or the Carolina mustard sauce tends to overpower.

Meanwhile, our server hustles out the main dishes. My Hot Brown, an open-faced turkey-and-bacon sandwich smothered in Mornay sauce and baked, is pure comfort in a crock. Slightly hard to cut (the sourdough bread on the bottom is dense), this hot sandwich satisfies on many levels. The perfect combination of savory and smoky, with the slightest hint of sweetness to the brown sauce, this item would do well to have a permanent place on the menu.
Also receiving kudos is one of the bistro’s signature dishes—shrimp and grits.

Perhaps typical for southern locales, the ones at Stella’s are pretty fantastic. Plump shrimp perch amongst shavings of bacon, julienned scallions, and sliced red bell peppers on a bed of some of the creamiest grits I’ve ever tasted. From a purely aesthetic perspective, the dish sparkles with color, and it could happily satisfy for brunch, lunch, or dinner. Now if there were only room for the caramelized-onion-and-mushroom meatloaf, basil-grilled mahi mahi, and garlic-and-herb roasted pork.

Extra creativity has been spent on signature drinks, from the Fairview cooler (soda, cranberry juice, fresh lime) to South Carolina peach sangria and watermelon margaritas.

Dessert here looks promising, too, but surprisingly, this is where the kitchen falls short. A banana pudding crème brûlée completely misses the mark—from the caramelized sugar topping that’s barely there and hardly caramelized to the grainy texture of the pudding that should be a velvety custard.

The toasted-coconut pound cake with caramelized pineapple and a drizzling of passion fruit coulis is pleasant enough, but we’re hoping the desserts will be given equal refinement in this highly desirable menu and refreshing new venue just south of Greenville.