Walking into a 250-year-old mansion is surreal on so many levels, especially when it cradles an astounding chunk of a city’s history and mystery. Perching picturesquely in one of Savannah, Georgia’s, graceful city squares is an architectural matriarch with a murky past, inevitably holding untold secrets. Now named The Olde Pink House, this 1771 structure near Reynolds Square whispers its stories as each footstep crosses the threshold — and many thousands of diners take those steps in a never-ending journey through the past.
Formerly known as the Habersham House, The Olde Pink House is now considered one of the best restaurants and bars in Savannah. It spreads gloriously across 16,000 square feet and more than a dozen separate dining rooms, each bearing its own personality and story. The deeply Southern food is universally lauded, but not in an upper-crust kind of way. In fact, loyal locals gather casually in the unpretentious downstairs tavern, one of the oldest sections of the restaurant, which serves the same menu as the upper chambers.
With every creaking step across original Georgia pine floors, there’s a real sense of kinship in the underworld Planter’s Tavern accentuated by cozy stone fireplaces, exposed brick walls, curious antiques, and nightly piano-playing. Spirits readily flow — both the drinkable kind and those reportedly lingering as ghostly apparitions from dearly un-departed souls. But make no mistake: The genteel upstairs dining rooms are still the main draw for dining at The Olde Pink House.
Deep South cuisine with Lowcountry roots
After crossing the threshold of The Old Pink House, we were escorted to the luxurious yet oddly cozy 2000-square-foot ballroom, the restaurant’s largest dining space. White linen tablecloths drape toward rustic hardwood floors, crowned overhead with glittering chandeliers and cloaked on every side by sepia-toned depictions of Savannah and Lowcountry scenery. The decor, as well as the food, is a curious mix of high style and Lowcountry cousine (which differs from Louisiana style cuisine), characteristic of a truly Deep South establishment.
Our first culinary encounter, presented with professional warmth and grace by a duo-server team, was a complementary basket of warm, buttery cathead biscuits, so-named for their huge, golden, fluffy composition. Arriving appetizers, per our torn decisions, included the sherry-spiked Lowcountry she-crab soup and classic fried-green tomatoes with a Pink House twist of sweet corn cream and applewood-smoked bacon. Intriguing interpretations of crab, shrimp, oysters, scallops, and salmon feature throughout the menu, none of which are disappointing, per countless reviews. But a specific seafood entree steals the show.
The restaurant’s humble-brag claim to fame is a crispy flounder filet that’s battered and fried, then scored and drizzled with apricot chocolate glaze. Like the fried flounder, its plate mates are true Southern staples: stone-ground grits and collard greens. My dining companion veered from seafood to a perfectly cooked filet mignon with a green peppercorn demi glace. Our third entree featured an astounding crispy fried lobster tail with sweet chili-infused dijon sauce served alongside butter beans (aka lima beans) and bacon, buttermilk mashed potatoes.
Tromping through the mansion’s pink past
To truly appreciate the food and ambiance of The Olde Pink House, it’s important to know its storied past. Long before its current incarnation, and after serving as the residence of original owner James Habersham, the mansion wove its at-times deplorable story throughout Savannah. It once housed Planter’s Bank (the first bank in Georgia) — the enormous cast-iron vaults still remain in the downstairs tavern, now serving as wine cellars. The structure also held stints as a bookstore, law office, antique shop, and a Union army general’s headquarters during the Civil War, after the renowned siege of Savannah by General Sherman, which put an end to the slavery that was central to the building’s dark past. It even changed hands in the 1940s, with ownership and restoration by Jim Williams, the now-infamous antiques dealer and historic preservationist accused of murder, portrayed in the book and film, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”
Its first culinary foray transformed the structure into The Georgian Tea Room in the late 1920s, and finally, in 1971, this time-tested cradle of Savannah’s history evolved into The Olde Pink House Restaurant. With renovations, additions, and even rebuilt sections after a 2018 fire, it stands today as a testament to resilience and good bones. It’s pink coloration is now carefully maintained, but that wasn’t always the case. Per architectural trends after its construction, the exterior received a coating of white plaster, but the color of the original underpinning red bricks seeped through the plaster over and over again, resulting in its trademark appearance today: an unmistakably prominent pink house.
Ghostly company at The Olde Pink House
On my dining foray into the deeply historic dens and cubbies of The Olde Pink House, the pull between the old downstairs tavern and its upper counterparts was palpable. In the end, I split the pull, first dining in the main mansion space, then ending the evening in the warm firelight, burning candles, and spirited conversations below. The restaurant and bar staff readily acknowledge the stories of ghosts inhabiting the mansion’s various rooms, staircases, wine cellar, and especially the downstairs tavern.
As bluesy piano tunes floated, I sipped on the signature Planter’s Punch Cocktail, made with a mix of premium Papa’s Pilar Dark Rum, named for the gutsy, world-traveling author Ernest “Papa” Hemingway. Having been personally absorbed in the written saga of “Hemingway’s Boat,” it seemed fitting to pay tribute to the man whose fateful death by suicide mirrored that of James Habersham, the original Olde Pink House owner who reportedly hanged himself in the very room where we now sat. His ghost is said to roam about, along with the spirits of some of his slaves, including children, many of whom died from yellow fever.
Many more spirit sightings keep the intrigue alive, some involving an unknown sobbing female or Habersham’s wife inhabiting an upper dining room. Others center on laughing children playing pranks and games in the lower tavern, sometimes attributed to enslaved children once living the basement and dying from fires or yellow fever. A friendly recurring story has current patrons raising a glass with a Revolutionary War soldier.
