B1281: Fantastic Fare at a Venue with Vibe

In case you haven’t noticed, a swell of Hawaiian-themed places has arrived from the Pacific and is now making big waves all over Nashville. If you want to catch a particularly good one, you can do no better than to surf on over to B1281, an ideal neighborhood hangout spot. Named both for its adjacent BentoLiving hotel-apartments and for its Chestnut Hill address, 1281 Third Ave. S., B1281 provides fantastic fare in a setting of bohemian elegance. All is outdoors, with canopies shading the well-stocked bar and the nearby tables, and plants, fans and misters keeping everyone as cool as the chill reggae music. 

The dishes come fresh from the food truck permanently parked in place and colorfully painted with the words: ‘Aloha Nashville.’ The menu is a tour of the Pacific Rim: bento bowls, ahi poke, and Hawaiian-style yakitori. We tried the ahi poke and were blown away by its freshness and its flavor, the shoyu, tobiko and kukui nuts perfectly pairing with green onion and cubes of raw tuna. We also loved the accompanying lotus chips both for their subtle flavor and for the fact that they’re ideal vectors for scooping up ahi poke and moving the morsels to one’s mouth.