Start with the duck. Confit duck leg, a cornbread waffle under it, pickled carrots cutting through, orange hot honey poured over the top. It's an appetizer. It doesn't behave like one. Order it first, order it for the table, and understand that nobody is sharing it evenly. That's the tone of the new fall menu at Eli's Table: familiar Lowcountry bones, a little more heat, a little more char, and a kitchen that clearly had fun writing it.

The opening run is the most improved part of the menu. Grilled lamb lollipops come out with herb salsa verde, charred lemon and smoked rosemary. Crispy calamari arrives under a sweet Calabrian chili glaze with fried lemon wheels. Beef carpaccio — thin filet, crispy capers, shaved Parmesan, burnt-scallion aioli — is the one to get if you want to look like you know the menu. And the fried green tomatoes are still here, still cornmeal-crusted, still sitting on whipped pimento cheese with tomato demi-glace and pepper jelly. Some things don't get touched. If you only order one thing to start: the house-made focaccia with whipped pimento spread is five dollars and it will disappear before your first drink arrives.

The Filet au Poivre is the centerpiece — peppercorn-crusted, roasted wild mushrooms, duck-fat fingerling potatoes with rosemary salt, haricots verts. It's the plate you build an anniversary around. But the rest of the entrée list is where the kitchen is stretching. Short rib pappardelle with red-wine demi-glace, wild mushrooms, whipped ricotta and feta. Shrimp pesto tagliatelle with blistered tomatoes and crispy prosciutto. Aji verde chicken over cilantro-yogurt aji verde, which is not a sentence anyone expected to read on a Charleston menu and is exactly why it works. There's a prime burger on there too, with torched white cheddar and Parmesan-truffle fries, for the nights when that's simply what you want. And the Fresh Catch of the Day changes daily, which means the menu you read tonight isn't quite the menu that runs tomorrow.

The bar has been busy The cocktail list reads like fall arrived early and settled in. The Autumn Aviator — Bulleit bourbon, fig, bittersweet citrus. Hive & Harvest, built on fig and golden honey. A London Fog Martini with house-made Earl Grey syrup, vanilla and elderflower, which tastes like the last hour of a good dinner. Not drinking? The mocktail list isn't an afterthought. The Spiritless Spritz uses Lyre's NA Prosecco and Aperol, and the Espresso No-tini is shaken until it's genuinely silky. Everybody at the table gets something worth holding. Finish with the crème brûlée or the beignets with mixed berry coulis. The Chef's Seasonal Dessert rotates, so ask. 

Eli's Table serves dinner Wednesday through Sunday, 5pm to close, at 129 Meeting Street in the French Quarter. Closed Monday and Tuesday. That's five nights, and the fall menu runs the season. The five o'clock seating is the quiet secret — the courtyard is at its best in the early evening light, the bar is easy to get, and the kitchen is fresh out of the gate. If you've been meaning to come back since the renovation, that's the hour to do it. The soup rotates. The catch rotates. The dessert rotates. The duck, thankfully, does not. Wednesday through Sunday. We open at five.

Eli's Table · 129 Meeting St, Charleston · Dinner Wed–Sun from 5pm · @elistable