39 Rue de Jean

People think of this as just a wonderful French restaurant but either don’t know or forget that they have outstanding sushi and maki. Last night I had a great goat cheese and beet salad followed by some fried tempura tuna maki and a wonderful glass of wine. Just the proper amount of food before the theater. Great evening.

My wife and I had dinner here tonight. Everything was great: cocktails, mussels, mesclun salad, swordfish, pork chop. The service and ambience were perfect even though the restaurant was mostly full. I rarely give five stars, but they deserve it. We are not from Charleston, but we will return so that we can dine here again.

So last week I booked a brunch reservation here for Laura and I. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon and we’ve been wanting to try this place ever since I checked out their brunch menu a few weeks back. Surprisingly enough, the prices for brunch are so cheap; and the food is top notch. we started out with Escargot and the bacon and blue cheese mussels. The Escargot was ok, but then again, that’s not my taste. The mussels literally stole the show. They are served in a buttery, bacony, smoky sauce that will make any grown man wanna smack his momma. Although I don’t recommend that. The mussels are so big and meaty. Yes, I cringed when I wrote that. and the broth is superb. A basket of bread was served at our table and we ate every single slice dipping it in the broth. Laura ordered the Charleston breakfast which is essentially crab cake benedict and I had the duck confi omelet. Both dishes were served with fries which I found to be an odd addition to the dish. None the less, I couldn’t stop eating them. We also had a couple of mimosa’s each and our bill was stupid cheap for what we got. Service was top notch as we had Unilocal’s very own Molly B. waiting on us. 39 Rue de Jean gets my ringing endorsement for the absolute best brunch we’ve had since moving to Charleston. I HIGHLY recommend it and can’t wait to try them for dinner.

This place is absolutely fantastic! We did not have reservations but they managed to seat a party of 5 in less than five minutes. Our waiter was extremely friendly and gave amazing service. The food was all around wonderful all the way to desserts. We didn’t have to ask for anything as it really was seamless service. Thank you so much for a great evening !

EXCELLENT! I got the lunch special and there was so much food I had lunch with leftovers the next day… the soup du jour was OUTSTANDING and the braised short ribs with mashed potatoes and veggies was also excellent. Will be back!

The only reason why I’m rating it a 4 stars is due to the food.
From the oysters, mussels, steak tartare… amazing. The short rib, the pork filet wrapped in bacon (who doesn’t like bacon?) and RABBIT… was fantastic. I’m so shock as to how great the rabbit was! And the white wine butter sauce for the mussels. can’t stop dipping the bread in it.
Now as far as service goes… wow, I wish I got her name just to mention this was one of the worst service I’ve ever received. we had a party of 4… at 8:00… we were put in the back… not paid attention to. the wine wasn’t poured AT ALL. I had to do it myself 2 rounds for everyone. she looked annoyed. It was the tall, blonde chick with a pony tail. and coming from a server. you should not be a server. our tab was at least almost 350… and we’re great tippers. I know b/​c I serve… and my boyfriend always tips 30%…i had to almost tell him to tip you 15. That is AWFUL.
please improve on that.

This is our favorite charleston restaurant. Laid back. Good food and wine!
We love the mussels and Cakebread Chardonnay

One of the few restaurants that I love in Charleston!
One of my favorite dishes is their fried goat cheese salad, super yummy. Their lamb shank and french onion soup is also tasty. I had a pasta dish here one that was too salty but overall, the food here is really good.
FYI, I haven’t had their sushi here. I looked at it from afar and it didn’t look good… so I’ve never tried it. I’m a little bit of a «sushi snob», I’m quite picky about it so this review does not involve their sushi. But everything else is great!
If you come here in the evening, the environment is really loud. Sometime you have to almost yell to talk. The décor is trendy and sophisticated. It’s a nice restaurant with vintage looking mirrors everywhere. Make a reservation if you want to come here on a weekend, it can be quite full. There is parking ramp a block away to park your car, street parking is really hard to find in this area.

I went here for a group luncheon. The private meeting room is cozy and has a nice view of the street. As for the food, we had a caprese salad, salmon with asparagus and mashed potatoes, and little finger desserts. Nothing was outstanding but all of it was good. The salmon was cooked perfectly and surprisingly, the mashed potatoes were tasty and nice complemented the salmon. The desserts were nothing to write home about. In fact, i have a sweet tooth and did not feel the least bit compelled to take any back to my hotel despite all of us being given boxes to do so.

I had the braised rabbit and it was excellent. It was cooked to perfection and the gravy was a great addition. I will definitely add this place as one of my Charleston must visit.

Excellent food. We started with French onion soup foie gras and escargot then moved on to the braised short ribs that were incredibly fall off the bone tender and braised rabbit. Our party of 4 shared all and we were very satisfied
Will for sure be back

We had a large group (12 people). We made a reservation for Saturday for brunch. When we got there, they sat us in a table in the back near the kitchen… The server waited a few minutes before coming over to us even though he was not doing anything. When he finally came over to us, handed us the menus, he didn’t even ask to take a drink order. About 10 min later, he came back to take our drink orders. We decided that we didn’t want to but their mimosas as they were fairly pricey. He told us that we should just buy the carafes and split them, they were cheaper. We decided to do that. It took him about another 10 minutes to bring out a bottle of champagne and a carafe of OJ… Now this place only had a couple other people there, so I have no idea why it took that long. About 45 min after we sat down, the waiter came to get our order for food. Why it took him that long to ask us, we will never know… probably just lazy. Two of us gave him our order and he said, wait, you took the wrong menu. Um, no, sir, you were the one who handed us the incorrect menu… he proceeded to take everyone’s menus and get a different menu. I guess he gave us a different day’s menu or something. He handed everyone the correct menu and waited about another 10 minutes to come back. Now we had been sitting there without food for nearly an hour.
Ticked off that I couldn’t get the simple egg sandwhich I had picked out nearly 45 minutes ago, I ordered a burger as others had told me it was good. 30 minutes later we get our food. My burger and fries look glorious. I got the Gruyère cheese burger and fries. When I took a big bite of the burger as I was starving, I nearly vomited. (Side note, I LOVE salt… the more the better. I like to even eat the salt at the bottom of the pretzel bag when all the pretzels are gone.). This burger was so insanely salty that I couldn’t eat it. There is rarely a time where there is something so bad that I won’t eat it… I eat just about anything. I ate less than a quarter of the burger and even then, I scraped off the cheese. I was grateful that at least I had some fries to eat since the burger was so disgusting, but the fries were even incredibly salty. I actually had to brush the salt off the fries to even be able to eat them.
One of my friends let me have some of his ham and cheese sandwich, so at least I got something to eat, but I won’t ever go back there.
In addition to the food not being good, the server was very rude to us. He ignored us many times when he should have been taking our order and he was visibly annoyed when we walked in… He was rude about splitting checks, even though he was the one to suggest that we all split the mimosas.
The décor was the only nice thing about that place… it had a great atmosphere, but I wouldn’t go back, nope, nope, nope

— 2.5, but I’ll round up to 3 stars
— came for brunch. made a reservation at 10am on sunday… not necessary… no one else in the building
— service was very so-​so. waiter seemed like it was his first day on the job
— never seen fries come with benedict before… seemed pretty d-​league
— over-​rated, in my opinion

Rue de Jean is an old school restaurant showcasing French cuisine since before Charleston blew up as foodie capital usa. So what you can expect is a more traditional approach as opposed to the constantly evolving menu’s at some of our other favorites. You will always receive fantastic mussels, a killer burger, fresh sushi and big plates of French classics. That menu hasn’t changes in 15+ years, but I don’t think the prices have either so you do get some great value for your money. I recently have been revisiting Rue (two visits in the last 3 weeks) and have been really happy with the bar service, the table service, and the food. It’s fun and its casual and it won’t break the bank so you’ve definitely got a winner here.

This was my second time there, this time it was just for drinks. Word to the wise, you can only have drinks in the bar, you have to eat to get on the patio, next time we’ll at least get appetizers. They have great seafood dishes, a great wine selection and the low lit abmiance is nice too.

Context: Group of 7 for Sunday brunch with 3 young kids.
Service:
Great. The waitress was attentive and knew to ask whether we wanted lids on the drinks for the kids. No one at the table had to wait for anything and the food came out hot.
Environment:
Decent in terms of noise level but a little dark. The space accommodated our group and another large group without issue.
Food:
This is why this review only has 2 stars. I’ll preface this by saying I’m French (half), from France. As in, I grew up speaking French and eating French food. However, even knowing this is an Americanized version of a French brasserie, the food wasn’t great. The menu itself is a little odd too. Who serves sushi at a brasserie? But perhaps that’s because it was brunch. Still. The options were ho-​hum.
PROS:
1) Baguette was good and served warm.
CONS:
1) French toast was dry and bland. My kids, who love French toast, barely touched it. That’s saying something.
2) The escargots were sour. The garlic and herbs were on point, but for Christ’s sake, use a good wine and make sure to reduce your sauce to cook off the alcohol.
3) Mussels mariniere. Same problem here. Bad wine. It was too sour. The mussels were cooked well but there was too much broth. My mussels were floating.
4) Again, the eggs benedict still had the taste of vinegar from their poaching liquid. The hollandaise lacked a bit of salt and the fries were a bit on the soggy side.
End note:
If they’re going to compete as a French brasserie (and hey, there are several in the city), they’re going to have to up their game.

We finally got to eat at this gem! We’ve been here before for drinks, but we never had the opportunity to have dinner. The service, ambience and food was impeccable. We started off with a few vodka tonics and an appetizer of the calamari and frites. The calamari appetizer was huge! So huge that my girlfriend didn’t even get a main course. I’m a hungry man so I ordered the braised short ribs for my main course and it did not disappoint. The meat was super juicy it was like cutting into butter!
Aside from the awesome food, we loved or bar tender Jimmy. Great guy who’s originally from Boston and had some great stories up his sleeve. We also had the opportunity to talk to a gentleman who was sitting next to us. He was in Charleston for business and we enjoyed discussing our favorite places and spaces with him.
Also as a side note, even though this is a French restaurant they have sushi on the menu, but we did not try it. When we asked Jimmy why they had sushi in a French restaurant his response was flawless, «Cause this is America and we do whatever the fuck we want.» We definitely got a chuckle out of that.
Overall this place has an A+ rating in our book! We’ll be back for sure.

I had the Chicken Fricassee at 39 Rue De Jean and it was the BOMB!!! I was going to use another word, but Tammy felt that it was inappropriate for me to post online… Anyways, my daughter Erica had the Pork Brandy and it also tasted like the word that I can not say, but in a good way. LOL!!! Sorry my palette is talking to me at the moment.
If you are in downtown Charleston stop in nd give them a try… Forget about the atmosphere or layout… Pay for the food. That’s what you came for.

Everything was way too salty and not a good representation of French food. I’ve been to France and Montréal and Quebec City– all of these places offer the real deal. This was not the real deal. Even the crème brûlée wasn’t good and many restaurants that aren’t French restaurants can get that right.
I don’t know if people in the area haven’t eaten any other French food besides this or if they’ve just gone downhill but it was not acceptable. Would not go back. My nephew who was with us insisted on getting sushi and he said even that wasn’t that good.
I could go on and on about other French food that I’ve eaten in other cities including locally for me. We have a place owned by some people from Paris nearby. Next time I’m home to visit and go to Charleston, I won’t be stopped here.

I’ve eaten at 39 Rue de Jean both in Charleston and in Savannah, but confess my preference for their Charleston location on John Street.
A couple of the more unique appetizer preparations I’ve enjoyed have been their roasted bone marrow which is done with a rich concord grape jam, pickled onion, mustard seed served with a roasted Tuscan bread. Then for a light lunch they have a delicious mussels which you can have prepared in any of six different ways, being: Mariniere (white wine, shallot, parsley), Pistou (garlic, basil, olive oil), Curry (a curry and coriander combination), Aioli (a classic garlic broth), Vegetable Cream (a cauliflower based cream sauce), and a Bacon Blue Cheese done with a white wine garlic broth. Other rather good appetizers, or since this is a French restaurant I suppose I should say «hors d’oeuvres,» are beef tartare and also their foie gras which they prepare pan seared with a port reduction, blackberry corn bread and small greens.
For a real hardy dinner, they have a great lamb shank done with brandied figs and parsnips.
The atmosphere and décor are casual, simple but tasteful with an old style classical restaurant charm.