The fine dining French restaurant Scoundrel, which plans to open downtown this fall in the old Handi Indian Cuisine location at 18 N. Main St., has revealed plans for a new facade facing Main Street.
The plans, which are still preliminary and require approval from the city’s Design Review Board Urban Panel, call for a new black-metal gate to enclose the adjacent condos and the addition of outdoor patio seating for diners, with bistro lights strung across the ceiling to activate the space.
DP3 Architects designed the new facade improvements, which will go before the DRB at its next meeting on July 7.
This marks the first look at the restaurant from acclaimed chef Joe Cash, a Greenville native who has worked in some of the best restaurants in the world before announcing his return to the Upstate. His plans for the new concept are to deliver his take on French bistro classics to a Southern crowd, with a particular focus on what he calls “a steakhouse vibe” with “simple, honest cooking.”
Having spent years as a chef working in kitchens that produce highly intricate tasting menus, with the kinds of dishes that are arranged with tweezers, Cash is now among a growing cohort of chefs drifting away from the stuffy, high-priced tasting menu dining experience.
With Scoundrel, he aims to combine that highly technical approach to cooking with more approachable dishes.
“Nobody really wants to put on a suit and sit down for a 20-course tasting menu over five hours. I think everybody’s past that,” he said. “It had its time when it was really fun, but in general I think where dining is now, people want to be able to go out in jeans, maybe a nice button down, but that’s about it. Now it’s all about making a killer meal prepared by chefs who could easily execute in a three-Michelin-star restaurant but who are looking for something else.”
Read our full profile on chef Joe Cash
