Dine

Downtown / SoBro

A 30-plus-vendor food hall on the top floors of the Fifth + Broadway development, with four bars, three stages, and what it bills as Nashville's largest rooftop overlooking downtown.

615-800-5395

A Dallas-born taqueria doing genuine Mexico City street food inside Assembly Food Hall — spit-grilled meats, hand-pressed tortillas, and a cheese-crusted specialty most Nashville menus don't bother attempting.

True Neapolitan pizza cooked in a volcanic-stone, wood-burning oven, tucked into the Assembly Food Hall lineup a short walk from a second DeSano location in North Capitol.

The Assembly Food Hall outpost of East Nashville's beloved beer-garden burger joint, serving the same hand-ground patties and house-made brats without the wait for a table across town.

The Gulch

Nashville's most celebrated fine-dining experience, now seated at a twenty-person U-shaped counter on the fifth floor of the Bill Voorhees Building in the Gulch. A Michelin-starred, multi-course tasting menu is composed and plated directly in front of you. Reservations release monthly and go in minutes.

(615) 810-8200

The Gulch

Jonathan Waxman's live-fire restaurant in a converted auto shop in the Gulch, built around a wood-burning oven and grill that anchor everything on the menu. Weekend brunch here is one of the best in the city, and the roasted chicken with salsa verde is the dish regulars order without opening the menu.

(615) 988-9700

Rutledge Hill

Nashville's most beloved meat-and-three. A cafeteria line, cash only, with rotating daily specials of Southern classics. The cornbread is legendary, the turnip greens are perfect, and the line out the door is part of the ritual. Open weekdays through mid-afternoon only.

(615) 256-4455

Midtown

The hot chicken spot most visitors end up at, and for good reason — Hattie B's is outstanding. The Shut the Cluck Up heat level is legitimately dangerous, the sides (pimento mac and cheese, black-eyed pea salad) are some of the best in town, and the line moves fast.

(615) 678-4794

East Nashville

A small, loud, always-packed East Nashville institution. Teresa Mason's tacos — especially the chicken tortilla soup and the fried avocado taco — have a cult following that stretches far beyond Nashville. Arrive early and expect a line.

(615) 543-6271

Germantown

Communal dining, Southern style. You sit with strangers at long tables and pass heaping platters of fried chicken, biscuits, and country ham — all you can eat. It's the purest expression of Nashville hospitality. Brunch at the Germantown location is one of the city's great rituals.

(615) 248-4747

Woodbine

Nashville's original hot chicken family runs a full-service dining room on Nolensville Pike now, but the fundamentals haven't moved: chicken fried to order, brushed with cayenne-lard paste, and calibrated in heat levels that get genuinely dangerous by the top of the menu. Order Medium if this is your first time.

(615) 810-9388