The 10 Restaurants That Defined Nashville Dining This Year

At first glance, replacing the venerable and beloved Capitol Grille as the flagship restaurant of the opulent Hermitage Hotel seemed rife with risks. This was renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s first foray into a U.S. city outside of more established dining markets like New York and L.A., and would Nashville diners appreciate his cuisine? Would Jean-Georges’ vision remain consistent under the auspices of executive chef Kelsi Armijo?

The answer to both questions has been a resounding yes. The remodeled dining room and bar are lovely, bedecked in pastel colors. A wood-fired grill kisses locally sourced seasonal vegetables and pizzas, and the exemplary service staff worships at Vongerichten’s altar of extreme hospitality. As a hotel restaurant, locals and lodgers can enjoy all three meals of the day, and the vibe is welcoming to everyone from power lunches for the business set to tourists dressed for an evening of honky tonking. Drusie & Darr is the epitome of casual elegance in Nashville, and a new standard-bearer for how we like to eat.

The open kitchen at Audrey offers the opportunity for a fascinating dinner and a show as talented cooks keep their heads down, concentrating on dishes that venerate the traditional Appalachian cuisine of chef and owner Sean Brock’s childhood. Combining modern techniques with ancient ingredients, the menu is filled with surprises. If you can’t choose between the options, go for “The Feast,” which features a quartet of the kitchen’s current favorite dishes served family-style for sharing by the table. The addition of brunch has been a welcome extension of opportunities to dine at Audrey, which has solidified its reputation this year as one of Brock’s most personal efforts yet.

Husband-and-wife team Brian Lea and Leina Horii have worked together and separately in some of Nashville’s best kitchens, but their real passion has been excuting the Japanese home cooking of Horii’s youth in their own home and backyard. They bring the vibe of a Japanese neighborhood kissaten cafe to the people at their first restaurant venture as a couple. Working with astounding precision as they dance around each other in the tiny kitchen at Kisser, they create deeply flavorful and expertly plated dishes, many made using produce and herbs grown in their own garden. The whole experience is like eating at your best friend’s house, if they were a world-class chef.

No reservations. Find more info here.

Even though founding chef and owner Margot McCormack doesn’t spend as quite as much time as she used to in the kitchen of her eponymous East Nashville restaurant, she has trained some of the city’s best chefs over the past two decades, and the current staff agilely walks the line between executing classic favorite dishes and creating new recipes to highlight the best regional ingredients that come through the kitchen’s back door. Margot (the restaurant and the chef) remain a vital part of Nashville’s dining scene, and the culinary anchor of the Five Points neighborhood. And McCormack has made this the place to come to discover the city’s next generation of kitchen talent.

In a town filled with excellent taco options, Maiz de la Vida stands out thanks to chef Julio Hernandez’s fanatical dedication to spreading the gospel of heirloom Mexican corn. You haven’t truly tasted a tortilla until you’ve tried one made with maize sourced from Mexican fields, nixtamalized and ground by hand to create the perfect texture, and then griddled on a flattop before being stuffed with expertly prepared fillings to create transcendent tacos, enchiladas, and burritos.

Currently operating out a small tortilleria in North Nashville and a taco truck in residence at East Nashville tiki bar, Chopper, Maiz de la Vida will receive a huge upgrade when its new, larger location opens soon in the Gulch.

 No reservations. Find more info here.

Two Ten Jack takes guests on a couple of different journeys during the dining experience. The first is obviously a trip to Japan, immediately evident in the dark wood and other natural materials used in the decor of the cozy restaurant. The longer journey is through the courses of a traditional izakaya experience, where patrons wind down after a hard day of work with beer, wine, sake, and cocktails accompanied by a progressions of small courses including meat and vegetable skewers and dumplings, sushi and sashimi, and noodle dishes like umami-rich bowls of ramen and craveable spicy crab noodles. There’s really nothing else like this in Nashville … yet. Which is to say, we expect to see replicas before long.

Now that Atlanta has achieved Michelin Guide coverage, some Nashville diners wonder if Music City restaurants will soon find themselves under similar scrutiny. And at least two local restaurants already have some good direction on that front: In addition to Drusie & Darr there’s Tony Mantuano’s Yolan. The former chef at Chicago’s Spiaggia runs a kitchen that consistently pushes out a most remarkable repast, with a seasonally-rotating menu of inventive  Italian dishes and tasting menus that showcase specific regions.

Mantuano’s wife Cathy oversees a wine program boasting a deep list of primarily Italian wines that is unrivaled in Nashville, and the pastry program is also outstanding. In the face of the restaurant staffing shortages that plague many cities, the hospitality team at Yolan works the floor with effortless grace. And Mantuano doesn’t demand this sort of performance to win  awards; he does it because he believes in impeccable hospitality — now in Nashville.

Call 615-231-0405 for reservations.

When you enter a restaurant and notice shelves packed with stacks of firewood, you know you’re in for a special experience, and Pelican & Pig takes full advantage of the primeval techniques of cooking over open flames to produce some of the most remarkable repast in town. From chickens and pineapples hanging from strings over the hearth to grilled seafood and meats, almost everything on the menu benefits from the taste of gentle smoke. Open-fire cooking is for sure becoming a hallmark of modern dining in town, and P&P remains a standard-bearer.

Celebrating 10 years in Nashville, Husk continues to push the envelope in creative Southern cuisine while remaining steadfastly dedicated to exalting regional ingredients that demonstrate the bounty of Middle Tennessee’s and the surrounding area’s produce. The striking Italianate mansion that once served as the home of a Nashville mayor is still the capital of farm-to-table in the city, and it’s a delight to see chefs and bartenders grazing the kitchen garden for ingredients to use in their innovative presentations. It’s all a reminder that the city’s embrace of our own edition of Husk was a key moment in defining our modern dining scene.

Combining the flavors of the Middle East with ingredients sourced from the Mid South, Butcher & Bee has earned legions of fans for its approach to hospitality and ingenuity. In addition to offering a wonderful array of vegetarian and vegan dishes as part of the list of dips and mezzes, family-style platters of exotically spiced meats are sized for sharing to create a communal experience at the table. For a special treat, take advantage of the “Eat Like a Chef” dining option, where members of the kitchen staff present and explain an array of dishes from the current seasonal menu that have them particularly excited. It’s a fascinating peek into the mind of the chefs, and with the closure of the Charleston original, Butcher & Bee is now very much a Nashville mainstay.