How on earth do you eat at all of Nashville’s restaurants to feel like you can adequately cover something called The Restaurant Issue? You don’t. With 94 restaurants opening in Nashville already this year, you simply can’t. But that’s not the point of this issue, rather it’s to celebrate restaurants cooking with love, whether they’re old or new. Oddly enough, the restaurants we like the best are the ones without pretense or ego. They’re honest and comfortable. What they serve is good, sure, but the personalities behind the food are even better. Most folks cook as an act of love—to share a piece of themselves. To see folks leave happy and satisfied. We didn’t set out to focus on home-spun food in funky locales, it just seems to be where we like to eat.
The restaurant has come a long way baby. In the 90’s it was the chef’s table in the kitchen everyone wanted—being just feet away from the sauteing, chopping, and plating was all the rage. Today it’s the farm. Dining at tables set up in the field or barn just yards from the harvest is not only romantic, it makes us feel more in touch with our food. Regardless of trends, cooking from the heart will never change. It makes food taste better and always will. Enjoy this issue, hopefully you’ll learn about some new places and rediscover some old ones. Cook and eat with love.
Here is my super-scientific, highly curated and well researched list of restaurants I love (which will probably change tomorrow, so check back.)
Cool, calm and consistent. Sublime fresh Middle Eastern food. Grab a seat at the bar, order the Hummus and Epice Salad with fish. Add a crisp glass of white wine. Heaven.
Small, classy and cool. Park in Hattie B’s on Charlotte, and cross the street.
Audra’s sweets rock the world.
Some of the most seasonal tastiest food in town, but damn the crowds.
Love this hole-in-the-wall burger spot and the staff that mans it. The onion rings!
Best kept secret for pizza in town.
Best Korean fusion food in an office park with the nicest couple ever, who run it.
Way more than tacos.
Kale salad the best in town and real Neopolitan pizza. My neighborhood place. Don’t ruin it.
Our preferred Pho in town