Louis Osteen & Louis’s Lowcountry Larder

Louis Osteen was born in Anderson, South Carolina to a family in the theatre business.  In 1975, he left the theatre business to pursue his passion for cooking and apprenticed in Atlanta with Chef Francose Del-crosse.  Five years later, in 1980, he moved to Pawleys Island, South Carolina to open Pawleys Island Inn.

In 1989, in a desire to reach a larger audience, he opened Louis’s Charleston Grill in  the Omni Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina.  The awards rolled in, and in 1996 the Great Chefs television crew showed up to tape him for the Discovery Channel’s Great Chefs of the South series.

In 2007, Chef Osteen moved out to Las Vegas to open Louis’s Las Vegas and also the Fish Camp Bar, but timing was bad and the economy out there was crashing, so he tied up as executive corporate chef for the LXR Resorts in Boca Raton, Florida.  After that, he moved on to executive chef for the Lake Rabun Hotel in northeast Georgia, followed by a stint with the Nashville Hospitality Group running their Watermark, Fish & Co., and Blind Pig restaurants. In 2012, he returned to Pawleys Island to open Louis’s at Pawleys Island. 

In January of 2016, Chef Osteen was involved in a terrible car wreck and suffered serious injuries.  He has recovered, but is resting comfortably at home in Highlands, North Carolina and working on his own line of artisan specialty foods under the label Louis’s Lowcountry Larder.