Berry Hill

Berry Hill is one of six satellite cities completely encircled by Davidson County, and it has held onto its own city government, its own zoning, and its own identity rather than ever consolidating into Nashville proper. The neighborhood grew up as a modest grid of post-WWII cottages, and over the following decades those small houses got quietly converted — not torn down, converted — into recording studios, music publishers, and production offices. Today more than 40 studios operate out of what still looks, from the street, like a residential block.

Ocean Way Studios and East Iris Studios are the names that matter to anyone in the music business, and Bransford Avenue is the spine of the whole district: studios and publishing offices sit shoulder to shoulder with a genuinely good cluster of independent restaurants. Baja Burrito has been called Nashville's best burrito for more than twenty years running, and PfunkyGriddle and Sam & Zoe's cover the neighborhood's brunch needs without a single chain in sight.

Because it's still primarily a working studio district, Berry Hill isn't a place you tour so much as a place you eat in and drive through slowly. It rewards people who like their neighborhoods a little sleepy and their restaurants unbothered by foot traffic from downtown — there's no strip to walk, just a scattering of cottages that happen to house both hit records and excellent breakfast.