Common Restaurant

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

An Elevated Take on Lowcountry Cuisine

On East Broughton Street in the heart of downtown Savannah, Common Restaurant brings a sophisticated, unhurried approach to Southern American cooking. The room is described as an intimate, sophisticated bohemian setting — a fitting backdrop for food that draws deeply from Lowcountry tradition while pushing it somewhere new. Owners Mike and Bee Vaudrin have assembled a team that covers every corner of the experience, from the kitchen to the cellar to the bakery tucked away down the hallway.

The Kitchen and the People Behind It

Executive Chef Sean Freeman leads the culinary program, with Executive Bakery Chef Chelsea Clarkson running Trombone Bakery — an in-house operation producing all the breads, pastas, and pastries that appear across every menu. That hand-made foundation shows up throughout the dinner menu: short rib ravioli filled with slow-braised beef, a Fettuccine Fattoria layered with braised lamb and pancetta, and a Seafood Fra Diavolo built on hand-made pasta with white shrimp, lump crab, and butter-poached lobster. The cold bar and Smoked Oyster Rock — Chesapeake Bay smoked oysters in creamed collard greens with crispy bacon lardons and aged sherry reduction — anchor the start of a meal. Cornmeal-fried green tomatoes, stone-ground Gouda grits, and hot honey-glazed short rib over fried cornbread keep the Southern American identity firmly in place without leaning on cliché.

The Tasting Menu and the Cellar

For guests who want to hand over the reins, the Chef's Tasting Menu offers a seven-course seasonal experience starting at $85, coursed and curated by the culinary and hospitality teams — with the promise of a surprise or two along the way. It runs every evening from 5pm to 10pm.

The wine program, directed by Shawn Crowley, earned Wine Spectator's Best of Award of Excellence — a recognition that reflects both the depth of the cellar and the care taken in its curation. More than 30 wines rotate by the glass according to the season, and the list is designed to move with the food rather than sit apart from it. Bar Curator Jessica Myers brings the same intentionality to cocktails, with a list that includes both zero-proof options and full-proof originals like a bacon fat-washed bourbon Old Fashioned and a milk-clarified gin cocktail.

Brunch, Prelude, and Private Events

Common operates seven days a week across three distinct services: brunch from 10am to 3pm, a Prelude hour from 3pm to 6pm (oysters, drinks, lighter bites), and dinner through 10pm. A private dining space above the main dining room accommodates 10 to 80 guests, with multi-course menus matched to wines from the award-winning cellar — suited to everything from intimate dinners to larger celebrations.

The guiding principle, as the restaurant puts it simply: eat, drink, be restored.