Where to eat in at in Nashville right now: Alebrije, St. Vito Focacceria, Noko and more
A fresh serve of the Music City food scene — as lively and broad as it’s ever been
Alebrije
After years as a pandemic pop-up, Alebrije blossomed into a hard-won brick-and-mortar in a hip, but unassuming, East Nashville strip mall. The darkly tinted windows and minimal signage create an unintentional bit of deception. And once the restaurant is found and a table secured, the menu at Alebrije is another minor deceit: nothing indicates that the rich carnitas, “corn off the cob” or an asparagus tostada will be some of the best, most elegant bites in town. Pork spare ribs are slathered in a red chilli glaze and fall off the bone, and the red snapper tacos arrive crispy and layered with texture and smoky salsa.
Chef Edgar Victoria’s version of Mexico City street food is centred on masa, for which he nixtamalises and grinds his own corn; it appears in many shapes and forms on the menu, from tortillas to sopes to a crunchy topping, and it is excellent in every instance. Lunch and dinner are casual, and while there’s no booze, it’s easy enough to pop next door to Coral Club before or after.
ROAM. Landing in your inbox weekly.
A digital-first travel magazine. Premium itineraries and adventures, practical information and exclusive offers for the discerning traveller.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.St. Vito Focacceria
Seafood appears frequently, too, often tucked into a conserva or a pasta, or simply served on its own, like bluefin tuna thickly sliced in a pool of olive oil. Always order the focaccia with whipped ricotta and pistachios to start, but never stop there.
Noko
Noko’s menu cherrypicks from across Asia to assemble a menu of dishes you probably already love, even if you haven’t seen them offered all in the same place or in precisely this form. There is a peppy hamachi crudo, an assortment of bao buns and a long list of dishes enriched by contact with wood fire or a hot metal wok, from shishitos and Sichuan green beans to Wagyu brisket and a smoky half-chicken in wasabi-spiked white sauce.
The restaurant’s chef, Dung Vo, who opened Noko in 2023 with his partners Jon Murray and Wilson Brannock, has a knack for knowing what will please a crowd in East Nashville, circa now. That will be made clear by the first thing you’ll notice about the place: how hard it is to get a reservation.
Maiz de la Vida
Almost every day at Maiz de la Vida starts the same way: tubs of corn from Mexico are nixtamalised and ground into masa on a mill or molina. That masa is the basis for almost every dish on the menu, and the foundation of the restaurant itself: it’s how chef Julio Hernandez, who split his childhood between the Bronx and the Mexican State of Tlaxcala, began his own education after years of working in French, Italian and Southern restaurants.
Here, the masa-forward menu flows from house salsas and guacamole with fresh tostadas to a mole negro with butter risotto and tortillas. The South’s stamp is visible in Mr Hernandez’s self-coined, Tenn-Mex style, like cold-smoked chorizo with ham hock collard greens and heirloom beans, or a pile of carnitas and peach pico de gallo atop a fluffy square of cornbread — an island in a pool of buttery peach jus.
Junior
Philip Krajeck’s Nashville restaurants have always been of the right-place-right-time sort. It all started with Rolf and Daughters, his rustic Italian debut in 2012, which set him on a path towards his third restaurant, Junior. Expect red leather banquettes and white-tablecloth-covered tables, a snappy U-shaped bar and a shiny kitchen that’s open to the intimate 50-seat dining room — a paean to the romance of restaurants.
Technique that skews French pairs with local ingredients to excellent effect: a quail oeuf mayonnaise deploys a boiled quail egg on a cushion of bright green spring onion mayonnaise, draped with o-toro tuna and Cantabrian anchovy, and finished with a herbaceous leaf of lemon balm from the restaurant’s tiny garden. Subtle smoke from a Basque-style woodfire oven with a stone hearth and adjustable grates perfumes the dining room, roasting Bear Creek Farm beef or whole Amish chicken, while diners sip on wines selected by the wine director, Billy Smith (formerly of Four Horsemen in Brooklyn).
The Catbird Seat
Catbird Seat first opened in 2011, back before horseshoe bar tasting menu restaurants started growing on trees. One could argue this restaurant helped to propel that very trend. What is now a Nashville institution started another chapter in 2025, when Catbird Seat moved into a new space on the fifth floor of the Bill Voorhees Building.
The new chefs, Andy Doubrava and Tiffani Ortiz, are among a handful of duos who have worked within arm’s reach of diners. Their 15-course meals meet the restaurant’s historically high standard: they go to great lengths to enable ingredients to taste even more like themselves, as with a recent dish of halibut plated between a leaf of tempura shiso and a pool of saffron oil made with the fish’s bones. Patterson House, the restaurant’s sibling cocktail bar, also migrated to the South Gulch. And yes, reservations are still hard to get.
Bolton’s Famous Hot Chicken & Fish
Hot chicken, a Nashville specialty, is fried chicken so spicy it can literally cause you pain. (According to legend, that was actually the intention of the chef who invented it.) Bolton’s is no exception, particularly if you order it medium, hot or extra hot, which the staff strongly advises against.
In a city where restaurants specialising in hot chicken have become a cliche, Bolton’s is a bit of an odd bird for two reasons: No.1, it’s a friendly neighbourhood restaurant with roots (it opened in the 1990s) that predate the hot chicken craze, and No.2, the best dish is arguably the fried catfish. Order it mild, which, truth be told, is still pretty spicy.
Bastion
At Bastion, there are two sides to the coin: one, a boisterous drinking establishment with a laid-back vibe and impeccable cocktails, and the other, an intimate fine-dining restaurant with a multicourse tasting menu. And they share a bathroom. On the fine-dining side, overseen by chef Josh Habiger, a menu of imaginative dishes is prepared by chatty, enthusiastic chefs with eagle eyes and attention to detail.
Succulent agnolotti filled with merguez spiced lamb rested in a pool of sherry brown butter sauce. One dish is an absolute bonanza of potato products featuring potato mochi bathed in whey sauce and showered with wavy bonito shavings. When dinner is done, stop in at the “Big Bar”, as the rowdy side is called, for a nightcap and a dose of cool.
