Local and regional foods shine in Dyron’s cuisine.
By Jan Walsh
Photography by Beau Gustafson
The Place
Entering Dyron’s Lowcountry you can’t miss the chalkboard that is front and center. It boasts the local food purveyors with their products served on the menu. This tribute provides both well-deserved recognition and speaks to the authenticity of Dyron’s lowcountry cuisine.
Dyron’s atmosphere is warm and welcoming. Sky tones of light blue contrast with earthy
browns and jet-black. And what you don’t see but definitely feel is an underlying ambience that is difficult to achieve—a synthesis of community with privacy. Wooden banquettes line the walls and are broken by narrow, wooden panels that partially conceal each table from the adjoining one. Tables draped in black tablecloths are surrounded with tall, comfy brown leather chairs. And the tables are well spaced, allowing your private conversations to be just that. From the bar below the signature mirror, muddling sounds of handmade cocktails dance through the room along with the tunes of upbeat Southern music. And at the end of this long week, it all combines for me into a calming, relaxed feeling of “I am glad I am right here, right now.”
The People
Dyron and Sonya Powell enjoy traveling to places where they can both relax and enjoy the destinations’ culinary offerings. Their favorite place for this is the lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia. Thus they incorporated this same relaxed lifestyle in their ambience and the coastal fare in their lowcountry cuisine at Dyron’s.
Favorite Fare 
We pair dinner with a bottle of white Bordeaux, Chateau Ducasse 2009. A basket of hot, homemade biscuits with accompaniments of Weldon Farms Honey and a local muscadine jelly are nibbled while we make menu selections.
Three appetizers are selected. A beautiful and tasty dish of Grilled Jumbo Asparagus arrives topped with a lovely, fried McEwen and Sons’ farm egg, scrumptious, golden fried oysters, and Louisiana Crawfish Hollandaise. Crab claws at Dyron’s are always a must. We do as our server, Patrick Gray suggests—half fried and half marinated. The claws arrive divided by a deep red, homemade cocktail sauce and fresh lemon wedges. The fried claws are crisp, golden and lightly breaded, and the marinated claws are tart, firm and succulent. And a highly recommended app of Grilled Quail is served with two, moist quail legs flanking a McEwen and Sons’ fresh poached farm egg and—a favorite of mine that I don’t see enough of on Southern menus—red eye gravy.
Whenever I see fisherman Greg Abrams’ name on a restaurant menu, I get excited because I know what I am ordering—his fish. Backstory here is that I know Abrams as the fisherman who calls restaurants from the boat to report what he is catching so that a chef’s menu can be planned for the freshest fish. Entrees of Greg Abrams Grilled Grouper and tonight’s special of a Line Caught Steelhead Trout are selected. The grouper is the highest quality and freshness, cooked to perfection. The outside is firm and grill marked. The inside is moist, white as snow and filled with flavor. It is served over creamy McEwen grits with a side of lightly dressed, local mixed lettuces and a divine Louisiana crawfish and white wine butter sauce. And the trout is just as special. The essence of the fish is trapped inside its lovely silver
skin. And the tasty trout makes a hearty meal with its fresh, tender red potatoes, firm and tasty asparagus tips, and crisp snap peas.
There is no run of the mill, bakery style dessert list at Dyron’s. From a list of intriguing sweets we select the Lemon-Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Pistachio Lemon Macaroons for sharing. The creamy and tangy dessert proves to be a masterpiece of pastry art infused with Southern style. The panna cotta is served in a Mason style jelly jar rather than the traditional presentation—inverted onto the plate. Alongside it are two macaroons filled with homemade marshmallow and burst with lemon and pistachio flavors. We savor every bite with the effervescence of Adami Prosecco Brut Garbel.
Published,
B-Metro magazine, May 2012.