French chef to open tasting room in Greenville, adding to the SC city’s array of restaurants

A French chef who has been the corporate chef for Table 301 restaurant group in Greenville is planning to open a tasting room later this year.

To be called Enlo, the restaurant will be part of the Table 301 group and run by Chef Nico Abello.

It will be located in the upstairs space at another Table 301 restaurant, The Lazy Goat, a Mediterranean restaurant at Riverplace along the Reedy River. Table 301 also owns Soby’s, the group’s signature location.

The opening date was not announced, but it is expected this summer.

Abello said he knew as a young man he wanted to be in the hospitality industry.

He was born in Velizy Villacoublay, outside Paris and started culinary school when he was 15 years old.

At 17, he apprenticed with the two-star Michelin restaurant, Les Trois Marches in Versailles with Chef Gérard Vié and Sous Chef Laurent Zajac, he said in his bio on the Enlo website.

In 2016, he opened the restaurant L’Appart in Manhattan’s Le District as executive chef. The decor mimicked Abello’s apartment and the diners were his guests at a private dinner party. Nine months later, he was awarded a Michelin star. Five more came in consecutive years.

GQ described the New York restaurant’s ever-evolving tasting menu, as featuring pheasant-and-porcini pâté en croûte, a delicate dover sole with black truffle and the “tastiest serving of slow-roasted chicken you will ever put in your mouth.”

“These aren’t your standard French classics; these are totally reimagined takes made with ultra-fresh ingredients and seasoned with a touch of spontaneity,” the magazine said.

“His techniques are rooted in tradition, but his methodology is totally unconventional,” the magazine said. “For starters, he hardly ever uses a recipe.”

Abello told GQ, “I think about ingredients first. In my car in France, I had a block of Post-It notes and a pen, and when I stopped at the light, I’d just write whatever was in my mind. Sometimes I’d have 10 Post-Its all over my car. I took those and put everything in a book, but I never touch it.”

Abello and his wife visited Greenville in 2018. After the Covid pandemic began, they decided to move to Greenville, joining Table 301 in 2022.

“I love what I do because it’s creative, and it’s very gratifying to see people happy with the food we produce in the kitchen,” he said.