Acme Lowcountry Cantina: Embraces the local harvest with a side of salsa

Acme Cantina reshuffled its menu this year to reflect the locavore momentum.

Acme Lowcountry Cantina

• Wade Spees/staff Acme Lowcountry Cantina

Owner Bobby Simons and executive chef Frank Kline retooled their offerings to reflect their coastal Carolina location. But in doing that, they did not abandon the canon of Tex-Mex favorites that were their culinary drawing card.

They changed the restaurant’s name to reflect this new identity, and Acme Lowcountry Cantina proudly broadcasts its newfound status as a casual restaurant with the flavors of home on the menu. Early spring also saw the wine list realigned with the new menu.

Acme Lowcountry Cantina is open seven days a week, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. On Monday through Thursday, an abbreviated “lite” menu is offered from 2 to 5 p.m.

The exterior reminds me of an aging family beach house. It’s a little bit battered by the elements, embracing weathered and distressed with equal measure.

A shuttered deck is a frequent home to live musical performances and provides a space for drinking and eating. The bar is a welcome gathering area as guests wait for tables and the dining area telescopes into two small dining rooms.

Nautical tchotchkes define the space, and drawings of local fish species affirm the regional connections made on the palate and the palette.

Young servers were well schooled on the details of the menu. In the case of our server, it was clear she had ample opportunity to try the offerings as she was so fluid in her descriptions and preferences.

The crowd was steady at the time of our visit, and families with children found a welcoming environment for their little eaters.

If Acme Cantina was your go-to spot for familiar Tex-Mex classics, you have not been abandoned. Nachos ($8.50, $9.50), quesadillas ($8.50, $8.99) and tacos ($8.99-$10.99) along with salsa, pico de gallo, chipotle and crema keep the fire in the flames of South of the Border cookery.

Chef Kline and his staff moderate the menu with local ingredients and global influences. A Southern- inspired egg roll ($8.99) is filled with shrimp, ham, bacon and collards, wrapped in a thin dough sheath and flash-fried to a crispy finish. It was served with Acme’s citrus dipping sauce that nicely balanced sweet and tang.

The menu is extensive. There is pasta ($12.99-$18.99), sandwiches ($8.99-$11.99) and nautical homages, including The Hunley, The Wreck and The Yorktown as well as mix-and-match entrees. The Knot Fried, for instance, ($16.99, $17.99, $19.99) allows diners to combine shrimp, chicken, New York strip steak, scallops or crab cakes in one-, two- or three-option platters.

Sides celebrate the Lowcountry kitchen with red rice, black-eyed peas, field peas, grits and collards ponying up to the entrees.

Most entrees come with two sides unless they are pasta- or grits-based. Shrimp and grits is offered Acme style with a topping of pico de gallo ($15.99) or a Lowcountry version ($16.99) with tasso ham, peppers, onions and red-eye gravy.

Portions are more than generous and pricing is modest for a somewhat seasonal enterprise. Acme Lowcountry Cantina is open year-round, but the beach destination is certainly calendar-driven.

The kitchen is sourcing its ingredients from North Carolina for crabmeat to McClellanville and Crosby’s for local shrimp, fish, scallops, wahoo and tuna.

Local flounder piccata ($15.99) featured a thick cut of fish, floured and pan-seared with a sauce of capers, tomatoes, lemon, herbs and garlic-brown butter, which was just a tad too rich for this meek and mild-flavored fish.

Sweet tea brined fried chicken ($13.99) did not taste of sweet tea, but the brine kept the meat moist and supple during the frying process and added a pleasant toasty color to the flesh. Two sides accompanied this amply endowed dish. Our choices were a mild flavored pimiento cheese grits and creamy coleslaw.

Save room for dessert as Charleston Creamery is providing unusual flavors for Acme, such as red velvet cake ice cream. Key lime pie won’t disappoint and the default chocolate mousse cake ($4.99) that we had (they were out of the pie and ice cream) was right-sized and nicely flavored.

Acme Lowcountry Cantina earns high marks for its pricing and generous portions. It may want to decide on its culinary Southern border and harvest in one food zone: be that South Carolina or the Texas/Mexican.

And like farmers everywhere who thin their crops to improve the harvest, Kline may want to reduce his menu offerings so that the kitchen can manage production and quality.

They are off to a good start, and that is a good thing.