Mulberry Street Trattoria son planning Michelin star-level dining for Bluffton
When Chris Sullivan found out Michelin-starred Chef Curtis Duffy was opening a new restaurant in Chicago, Sullivan showed up with his resume, determined to work in the kitchen.
“I insisted on getting a job,” he said. That insistence paid off, and Sullivan ended up helping to launch Ever restaurant. The Chicago eatery opened in the thick of COVID in 2020 and has since been awarded two Michelin stars.
The Michelin Guide serves as the holy grail of excellence in dining. Earlier this year they announced expansion into South Carolina and other southeastern states.
Now Sullivan, of Bluffton, is hoping his hometown is ready for a world-renowned dining experience.
The chef, whose family has operated Mulberry Street Trattoria in Bluffton for 21 years, owns and operates his own catering company, Edible Memories. He is working towards bringing a dining experience to Bluffton that the town has never seen before.
He and his mother, Elissa, are currently developing a new counter-service Old Town eatery that he hopes will be the first step towards bringing Michelin-level food and service to the town for the first time.
“I used to chase the Michelin scene,” he said. “And now I can apply my travels and times here in Bluffton.”
What is this building to?
Sullivan and his family moved to Bluffton when he was eight years old. His mother Elissa said her parents were already here, and she wanted to be close to them – plus, the cost of living was lower here than in their native New York.
Elissa said her son had a clear vision from the start – he knew he wanted to be a chef and that he wanted to have his own restaurant.
“I’m not sure of anyone that has, at eight years old, such a vision of ‘I want to be a chef,’” she said.
At 19, Sullivan enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. He got a job at Eleven Madison Park in Manhattan, taking the train in from Poughkeepsie every day. On a family trip to California, he encountered Chef Thomas Keller’s French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley and decided to stay and work there. He moved to Chicago after securing the job at Chef Curtis Duffy’s Ever.
Sullivan returned to Bluffton in 2023, when he and his wife Destiny – who he met at Mulberry Street – learned they were expecting a daughter. He’s been back at the restaurant since, helping run things and bartending, and this summer, he started Edible Memories, which caters events, provides private chef and meal preparation services to local families and hosts dining events at Mulberry Street when it’s closed on Sundays and Mondays.
It’s a family affair
Getting help with his events is never too difficult, Sullivan said, because he’s related to four out of 12 people that work at Mulberry Street.
“It’s easy to get people to say yes when you’re family,” Elissa Sullivan said.
All of what Sullivan is doing now is intended to lay the groundwork for what Sullivan said he really wants to do. He and his mother are working on a new Bluffton restaurant that will bring Michelin star-level food to the area for the first time.
Sullivan and his mom didn’t want to go into detail about what exactly they’re planning, besides saying it will be a counter service eatery that will open in Old Town in 2027. But this is step one, Sullivan said: He eventually wants to build his own 30-seat restaurant, the kind of place where he or one of his chefs can talk to each and every guest. It will be a place where people will come because they know they’re getting something they can’t get anywhere else.
He just hopes Bluffton is ready for it. After all, many Blufftonians moved to the area from larger metropolitan areas known for their rich dining scenes.
“I do think Bluffton and Hilton Head need something like that,” he said.
Getting a taste
On a Monday night at Mulberry Street Trattoria, Sullivan was working his way through a crowd of about 30 people, wearing his chef’s whites and holding a glass of red wine.
The atmosphere was casual and light inside the dining room. Tables were arranged in a square shape around a central wooden beam. Patrons, who paid $50 each to attend, grazed on small bites like smoked salmon cheesecake with pumpernickel bread, ahi tuna wontons and crab lettuce wraps while sipping Italian wines. Standing in front of the kitchen was musician Campfire Tyler, who sang and strummed an acoustic guitar.
This was the first social event Sullivan hosted through Edible Memories; normally, he follows a traditional dinner service model. He got the word out the old fashioned way – word of mouth – but he also used social media. Mulberry Street has never really done a lot of advertising, his mother said.
Through Edible Memories, Sullivan has four more events planned for 2025, including a three-course, build-your-own brunch event on Sept. 28 with beignets, peach foster French toast and smoked salmon gravlax for $45 per person. A five-course Italian white truffle dinner for $210 per person will follow on Oct. 6, a Sicilian food and wine experience is scheduled for Oct. 26 for $90, and on Nov. 3, the menu for Sullivan’s winter wine dinner will include confit wagyu beef cheek, wild mushroom soup and a caramelized peach tart for $125 a head.
Elissa Sullivan said her son is non-stop, always thinking about the next thing he can make or do.
“He will text me ideas at 3 a.m., when it’s all coming to him,” she said. “He’s thinking about food all the time.”
Sullivan said he knows his eventual restaurants will be built out of the same principle that he has for his catering – that making food is, for him, a true labor of love.
“My food is very much an expression of me,” he said.
This story was originally published September 24, 2025 at 12:28 PM.