A Stroke of Indigenius

Personal Chef Service Brings Elevated Private Dining Experience into Island homes

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Indigenius Cuisine executive chef and entrepreneur Roland Feldman had already established a food truck and two restaurants by the time he began working with Indigenius in 2019. The Isle of Palms-based personal chef and catering service prepares personalized meals for vacationers and locals inside their homes, bringing the fine dining experience to you. Indigenius handles everything from setup and cooking to serving and cleaning. “We like to keep it hands-on. We’re really out there cooking on site,” says Feldman. “We don’t just show up there with a bunch of stuff kind of wrapped up and just put it on a plate.”

An Indigenius dinner event typically begins with a cocktail hour and reception, followed by an elegantly presented sit-down meal. “We guide them through a multi-course dinner experience,” says Feldman. Southern staples from oyster roasts to shrimp ‘n grits are common customer requests. Sustainability is central to their approach, whether it’s using all-natural grass-fed beef or local seafood and produce. “We are all about locally-sourced, sustainable, and ethical products,” he says. What really elevates their dishes, he says, is that they grow many of their own fresh herbs, such as dill, rosemary, and basil..

Feldman loves working on Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island,  acknowledging that it’s the beaches that keep him anchored in Charleston the refreshing sea breezes and the absence of gnats. Since he usually arrives at each event around 5 p.m. and serves dinner at 7:30 p.m., he sees gorgeous sunsets over the water nearly every time. “My view for work is the ocean,” he says.  

From Love Island to Isle of Palms

Indigenius (a play on indigenous cuisine) was started in 2014 by Boston native and Culinary Institute of Charleston alum Arlette O’ Rourke. Feldman joined in 2019 and, a couple of years ago, took over running the business along with fellow entrepreneur and chef Lee Anderson.

Feldman, who was raised along the Stono River near Hollywood, developed an affinity for Lowcountry cuisine in his formative years. “I grew up just really immersed in everything Charleston, everything having to do with the beach and the water,” he says. Family friends owned restaurants in Charleston and Feldman was part of the culinary scene early on, washing dishes on weekends as a teen to earn a few bucks.

He worked at the Sticky Fingers on Meeting Street when he was 17 and discovered that his mind was well-suited to the frenetic pace of a restaurant kitchen. “I can’t sit still at a desk if you paid me, but I can rock a sauté station – keep my eyes on a hundred things at once,” says Feldman. From there, he went to Magnolias on East Bay Street, which was his introduction to fine dining. “That showed me that there was a pathway career-wise for me to do this because it’s a little more art-driven,” he says.

I can’t sit still at a desk if you paid me, but I can rock a sauté station.”

-Roland Feldman

Feldman attended Johnson & Wales University in Denver, where he studied under James Beard-award-winning chefs, including Jennifer Jasinski, a protégé of Wolfgang Puck. Here he was thrust into the high-volume fine dining scene. Returning to Charleston, he worked a stint as sauté chef at Peninsula Grill on Market Street, where “I refortified my love of the Southern food scene,” he says.

His next venture involved buying a food truck and establishing Smoke BBQ, which quickly gained traction, moving to brick-and-mortar on King Street in 2015. The restaurant was featured on the Food Network’s “Beach Bites” and in The Washington Post. 

The exorbitant downtown rents led Smoke BBQ to close after four years, fortunately, says Feldman, right before COVID hit. With a young family now on the scene, he transitioned to small group dinner parties and began working with O’Rourke. A gig in Hawaii, cooking for the cast and crew of the shows “Love Island” and “Temptation Island,” introduced him to Anderson, a Charleston native and owner of Sugar Beach Events in Maui. When Anderson moved back to the Holy City, the opportunity arose for the pair to take over the daily management of Indigenius.

Indigenius has hosted dinners for football and movie stars, and they even landed a job cooking on the set of the locally-filmed HBO series “The Righteous Gemstones.” However, it’s the area’s steady stream of tourism and beach house rentals that drive their business. “Our bread and butter is small, elevated dinner parties on the islands,” says Feldman. Vacationers make up most of their clientele, but they love to cook for locals, too, serving at various parties and celebrations. 

Regardless of who he is cooking for, one thing remains constant: His work environment is pretty hard to beat: “Everything’s just clean and just seems to flow better on the islands.”

Indigenius has hosted dinners for football and movie stars, and they even landed a job cooking for The Righteous Gemstones."