The Legacy
Cypress opened on East Bay Street in 2001 and ran for sixteen years as one of Charleston's defining fine-dining restaurants. The building. A circa-1834 structure with exposed brick, dramatic industrial detailing, and a spectacular three-story wine wall holding thousands of bottles. Gave the dining room a scale and atmosphere that few new Charleston openings have since matched. Chef Craig Deihl built a career here that earned him multiple James Beard Award semi-finalist nominations for Best Chef Southeast, and a reputation as one of the most quietly influential figures in the city's food culture.
The charcuterie programme was the kitchen's signature achievement. Deihl developed a repertoire of house-cured, smoked, and cooked meats of a depth and variety that most American restaurants could not approach. Pates, terrines, rillettes, and whole-muscle cures arrived as a ritual opening to every serious meal. The wine wall was not merely decorative. The list behind it was one of the most thoughtfully assembled in the Carolinas, with particular depth in Burgundy and the Rhone. The Contemporary Southern menu shifted with the seasons and with Deihl's evolving obsessions, but it always maintained the dual commitment to technical precision and recognisable Lowcountry soul that made Cypress worth the table.
The restaurant closed in May 2017. Deihl departed alongside it. The building has since housed other tenants. What Cypress gave Charleston. A standard of fine-dining ambition combined with genuine regional identity. Is the benchmark against which the city's current dining scene still measures itself, whether consciously or not.
Current Alternatives for Team Dinner
For team dinners at a comparable level today, our editors recommend Iron Rose at the Mills House for its private dining room and polished service, Husk for its prestige and Southern pedigree, and FIG for its sustained excellence over a similar timeframe. None of them have the Cypress wine wall, but they have in their own ways continued what Cypress made possible.
Chef Craig Deihl
After Cypress, Deihl continued working in the food industry in various capacities. His influence on Charleston's charcuterie culture and his commitment to technically rigorous Southern cooking remain visible in the city's culinary landscape. The James Beard semi-finalist nominations. Rare for a Charleston chef at the time. Validated what regular guests already knew: this was a kitchen operating at a national level from an address most diners found only by recommendation.