The King Street Marketing Group and the Italy America Chamber of Commerce introduce the Charleston Italian Festival. The event will be a celebration of Italian culture, arts, food, wine and automobiles. It will be held on Daniel Island from noon to 7:00 p.m., September 19, the Feast of San Gennaro.   The Charleston Italian Festival will...

The 40th season of the Spoleto Festival USA opened Friday amid tributes to the men who established the internationally known art festival and remembrances of the nine people fatally shot in a city church last year during a Bible study. Hundreds gathered under a bright sun in front of City Hall as Mayor John Tecklenburg lauded former Mayor Joe Rile...

by Hanna Raskin   Almost a year after relocating to Charleston from New York City, celebrated chef Michael Toscano has announced plans to open a restaurant in the space currently occupied by Leaf. Le Farfalle will feature "regional Italian food," with an emphasis on housemade pasta, vegetables and seafood, according to publicist Nicole...

by Deidre Schipani   The culinary latitude and longitude has shifted on the corner that chef Ken Vedrinski originally established as a restaurant. Red-and-white checkered tablecloths have replaced the racing silks of Siena; the cuisine of Tuscany is pre-empted by that of Apulia, Campania and Sicily. Ristorante LIDI, the current resident, pro...

by Christina Riley   In early February, more than two dozen area youngsters auditioned for a children's chorus. They arrived with nursery rhymes, patriotic songs and familiar numbers from "Shrek" and Disney movies. Less than four months later, 13 of them are performing a little-known Giordano opera score. In Italian. At the Spoleto Fest...

Filmmaker Roberto Ando is one of Italy's most distinguished artists. A Sicilian by birth, his work, in both cinema and literature, is influenced by his associations with the great novelist Leonardo Sciascia and the movie director Francesco Rosi, among others.   His latest movie, the comedy "Viva La Liberta" ("Long Live Liberty"), which is ba...

by Erin Perkins   Soon-to-open venture Vincent Chicco's chef Aaron Lemieux may have a French surname that translates to "the best" and come from behind the line at brasserie Rue de Jean, but he has Italian food at heart. In a interview with Lemieux, he states his last meal would be his "mother's stuffed shells" and goes on to explain the ite...

A bright and bold poster designed by Italian artist Ugo Nespolo was unveiled by General Director Nigel Redden as the official 2015 Spoleto Festival USA poster today. Nespolo is the set and costume designer for Spoleto Festival USA's production of Francesco Cavalli's opera Veremonda l'amazzone di Aragona, which will have its American premiere-and fi...

The Lowcountry has no shortage of cultural festivals, and yet two years ago a group of area residents felt something was still missing. "We have every festival imaginable in the tri-county area, but there was no Italian festival," said Teri Lupinacci.   And thus the Lowcountry Festa Italiana, LLC was born. The nonprofit organization exists...

The giant wheel of parmigiana-reggiano at the center of a Le Farfalle dining room makes the point: Italian cooking traditions are at the core of this new restaurant from New York City restaurant scene vets Michael and Caitlin Toscano.   But while the cheese hails from Italy, many of the dishes it's plotted to complement are local to the Lowc...