Reports: Former SC chef injured in car accident

Chef Louis Osteen, who helped put Charleston’s Lowcountry cuisine on the culinary map, was injured in a car accident, according to various reports.

The news was first reported on the Southern Food & Beverage Museum Facebook page and in a story from the Nashville Scene newspaper.

Details of the accident, which reportedly occurred in North Carolina, were not available, though the reports cited Osteen’s injuries as “serious.”

Osteen and his wife Marlene recently relocated to the Highlands, N.C., area where he has been working on his own line of artisan specialty foods under the Louis’ Lowcountry Larder brand, the Nashville paper reported.

While in Charleston, Osteen was hired as the chef of Charleston Grill at the then newly opened Omni Hotel in 1989, a post that he held for more than eight years before leaving. He opened his own restaurant, Louis’s, in Charleston, and later, Louis’ Fish Camp on Pawleys Island. Osteen won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: South in 2004 for his cooking at Louis’ Fish Camp.

The Anderson native then opened a restaurant in Las Vegas and worked in various hotels before returning to Pawley in 2014. He also worked in Nashville, Tenn., at Watermark, The Blind Pig and Fish & Co.

This story was originally published January 14, 2016 at 11:42 AM with the headline "Reports: Former SC chef injured in car accident."