Hugh Acheson Is Closing His Savannah Restaurant, the Florence

Savannah restaurant the Florence will close this month, chef Hugh Acheson announced today. In an Instagram post, the Top Chef judge writes: “Sometimes you build something pretty with a lot of awesome artisans, you cook good food with skill and precision, you serve it with heart, professionalism and a smile, and at the end of the day it is still a financial puzzle that just doesn’t work.”

The Florence opened in a converted ice factory in 2014, and was one of Eater’s most anticipated restaurants that year. In 2015, Eater’s roving restaurant critic Bill Addison praised the restaurant’s mix of southern and Italian cooking and called out Acheson’s raviolo in particular for its “gushing contents, parmesan baked into crisp chips, feathery fennel fronds, toothy mushrooms and onion slivers, and wisps of country ham mirroring the porcine broth in which the raviolo bathed.”

Last month, Acheson listed the restaurant’s space for lease, but denied that it would be closing, telling the Savannah Morning News, “It’s not a dire situation. It’ll stay open as long as I want it to stay open… It can take eons to see if there is any interest, but we’re not closing.”

The restaurant’s last night of service will be Sunday, June 25.

• @hughacheson [Instagram]
• Inside The Florence, Hugh Acheson's Savannah Restaurant [E]
• Three New Restaurants Change the Game in Savannah [E]