The Best Places in Nashville

Barrel Proof is a small Germantown bar where the name tells you what's on the shelf and the wall of brown liquor does the rest. Seasonal cocktails and a covered patio make it easy to lose an afternoon, and the crowd runs from post-workout regulars to birthday tables to tourists trying to figure out bourbon. The kimchi-loaded fries with sambal mayo are the move, especially at happy hour.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

The coffee shop that Nashville's coffee scene grew up around, Bongo Java has been on Belmont Avenue long enough that its organic, fair-trade roast turned up on other restaurants' menus before most of those restaurants existed. Breakfast burritos run all day alongside the pour-overs, which makes it less a quick-caffeine stop and more a place where you might accidentally stay for two hours. The Belmont crowd tends to ensure exactly that.

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

1. The Infatuation #17 · The Best Restaurants In Nashville

Brightside Bakeshop is a pastry counter where the menu rotates monthly, so your favorite croissant is always on a countdown. Flavors tend toward the inventive, like lemon lavender kouign amann or an oatmeal cream pie croissant, and there's a sunny wall in the Nations spot that's clearly there for the photos. Expect coffee-and-pastry prices and a line of people deciding between the danish and the other danish.

1. The Infatuation The 15 Best Bakeries In Nashville

Chopper is a tiki-ish cocktail bar that swapped the grass skirts for robots, with Star Wars characters turning up in the barware and the drinks billed as "lab tested," as if a bar had a lab. Mai tais and rum runners get their own spin alongside a rotating seasonal menu, and the coffee drinks tend to be the interesting ones. A taco truck usually parks out front, so dinner is basically handled.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville
2. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Symbiotic Food Truck/Bar Relationship · Best of Nashville

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

Dino's is an East Nashville dive that has been feeding the after-hours crowd since the 1970s, mostly with gooey cheeseburgers meant to talk a hangover out of existing. You can sit at a diner table in the dim main room or out on the covered patio, and the punk rock restroom is considered part of the visit. The bar pours Coors, Shiner Bock, and mezcal, Campari, even Malort, and the line peaks right after the bars close.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville
2. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

The record player in the corner runs through a custom vinyl setup built by local audio obsessives, which tells you something about the attention paid here. This coffee shop sits in the lobby of the Noelle hotel, done up in brass and wood with Eames-style swivel chairs. Sump coffee goes into the cortados and cold drip, and the breakfast sandwiches are substantial enough to make the commuters look smug.

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

The meat-and-three is Nashville's quieter religion, and this old-school soda shop on Elliston Place is one of its oldest temples. Red leather booths, a soda counter, fried chicken, whipped potatoes, turnip greens, and pies that have had the same baker for over thirty years. The milkshakes and banana splits bring in a different kind of regular. The New York Times named it among Nashville's 25 best restaurants.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Nashville Right Now

Ernie's Boondock is a dive bar tucked below Up-Down in East Nashville, and it commits to the role with pool tables, dollar bills stuck to the walls, and a chain of Underberg hanging by the register. There's no cocktail menu, so order a gin and tonic or a tequila shot and accept the taxidermy's silent verdict from the red leather booths. Someone will mangle "Benny And The Jets" nearby, and you may join in.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

The red-drenched dining room and prix fixe menu of "Asian Italian" dishes at this East Nashville spot signal that something genuinely odd is happening here, in the best way. A trio of industry vets serves garlic noodles from a vintage lunchbox and caviar over French onion dip, then hands out red-checked bibs when the gochujang short ribs arrive. The bit never quite tips into exhausting, and the New York Times named it among Nashville's top restaurants.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Nashville Right Now

Flour Your Dreams is a small bakery and cafe out in Hermitage, the sort of place where bread making came first and everything else followed. The sourdough boules come sliced and ready for dinner, with local honey or butter on the shelf to go with them. There are only a few tables, but one usually opens up for a laptop and a chai, which makes it a decent excuse to skip the drive downtown.

1. The Infatuation The 15 Best Bakeries In Nashville

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

Gluten Free Goose is a dedicated gluten-free bakery in Lenox Village that opens just three days a week for six hours a day, so the Thursday-morning line comes with the territory. The case runs to cupcakes with tall dollops of frosting, oatmeal cream pies sized for a fist, and a brown sugar pop tart with ambitions. There's one lonely table inside, so most people eat in the car.

1. The Infatuation The 15 Best Bakeries In Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

Nine feet of coffee shop is apparently all you need. Headquarters is a tiny, eclectic cafe on Charlotte Avenue pulling espresso drinks from local roaster Osa, with a sorghum and cinnamon latte that earns its place on the chalkboard. Baked goods rotate in from several Nashville bakeries. It sits directly across from the Richland Park Farmers Market, which makes Saturday mornings feel suspiciously well planned.

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

The garlic bread is the open secret here: brioche baked pretzel-brown with molten creamy cheese at the center, and somehow that's what you'll talk about after leaving a pasta-centric Italian spot. The menu is fusilli alla vodka, rigatoni Bolognese, cacio e pepe, nothing you haven't seen before. One co-owner came up at Catbird Seat, which may explain why the familiar tastes like it means it.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Nashville Right Now

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

L.A. Jackson is the rooftop bar atop the Thompson in the Gulch, where a giant tree strung with tiny white lights sits in the middle like it's auditioning for a wedding. The cocktails lean on tangy shrubs, the sparkling rosé arrives with a guava pomegranate popsicle in it, and the hot chicken croquettes are the smart order. Weekend nights bring a DJ, so dress for a skyline and a crowd that came for both.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

Le Loup is a cocktail bar perched above The Optimist, decked out like a submarine, so you can drink a martini and feel mildly nautical about it. The menu devotes a whole section to martinis, and there are towering barstools, cozy booths, shrimp cocktail, and fries that Nashville has opinions about. Bananas foster gets flambéed tableside, which is a nice way to remind everyone the sea is flammable. After 10pm the snacks give way to sandwiches.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

Mama Bread is a neighborhood bakery and cafe with a pastry case that has people lining up around 8am, a full two hours before the loaves come out of the oven. Morning buns, croissant breakfast sandwiches, and flaky things stuffed with squash and ricotta are the reason to be in that line. There's a tiny market inside, so you can leave with jam and a mild sense of having your life together.

1. The Infatuation The 15 Best Bakeries In Nashville

Martha My Dear is a neighborhood cocktail bar on Gallatin Ave, in a space that spent a short, theatrical stretch as a WWII-themed Euro bar before closing without much mourning. The new owners kept some of the Old World bones and swapped the concept for something calmer, with drinks built by a bartender who came up through Attaboy. It's casual and low-key, with cocktails that take their job seriously and nothing else around them does.

1. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best Reinvented Bar · Best of Nashville
2. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

Whole hog barbecue is the organizing principle here, which means every part of the pig goes into the pit and comes out smoked, pulled, and chopped together. It's a proper Tennessee barbecue joint, loud and casual, the kind of place where the smoke follows you home. The New York Times put it on their Nashville list, and the brisket and jalapeño cheddar sausage give the pork plenty of company.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Nashville Right Now

Melrose is a basement dive bar where the entertainment is built in: pool, ping pong, foosball, darts, and shuffleboard, so nobody is ever forced into conversation. It has survived floods, an era of indoor smoking, and a brief closing, and it came back with a light spitshine and most of the old character. Drinks are local beer and basic liquor, the popcorn is free, and dress code is whatever you wore to work.

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Restauranteur in the Face of Adversity · Best of Nashville · Austin Ray
2. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

Mickey's Tavern is a dive bar on Gallatin Pike with enough light to find your drink and not much more. The bartenders will still make you a proper Negroni or a Last Word without a flicker of judgment. There's a pool table, darts, and a fenced backyard of picnic tables and string lights that turns dirt into ambience. Food is a hot ham and cheese sandwich, which is a full menu if you squint.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

Perenn is a bakery and cafe in the Sidco industrial stretch, in the old Stay Golden space, which now doubles as the central production facility. That means you can eat a pain au chocolat on a mezzanine while watching the people who made it keep making more, a little like dinner theater with laminated dough. The croissants and kouign-amann are flaky enough to leave evidence on your shirt, and the almond croissant wants to be warmed.

1. The Infatuation The 15 Best Bakeries In Nashville

1. The Infatuation The 15 Best Bakeries In Nashville

1. The Infatuation #12 · The Best Restaurants In Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

A honky-tonk on lower Broadway where the band plays for tips, the cowboy boots for sale hang on the wall, and a High Life costs about what it did when your dad was young. The kitchen turns out fried bologna sandwiches and cheeseburgers off a griddle, which suits the steel guitar fine. It smells like leather and fryer grease, and the tourists who wandered in for one beer tend to stay through the second set.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

A beer-only karaoke bar in a double-wide trailer that stays decorated for Christmas through every month of the year, run by an owner who looks exactly like the name on the door. Expect PBR, Miller Lite, and a seltzer, cash only, with an ATM outside for the optimistic. The karaoke rules are strict: no cussing, smoking, or drinking while you hold the mic. The Infatuation named it one of Nashville's best bars.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

Schulman's is a neighborhood dive bar dressed as the finished basement of your friend's cool parents, with stained glass lampshades, a lacquered bar, and leather booths that have seen things. The martinis run twelve dollars, there's a double cheeseburger and a pickle beer, and the backyard is built for smokers holding frozen margaritas. Nashville Scene named it Best New Bar in 2024.

1. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best New Bar · Best of Nashville
2. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

Sift is a bakery-cafe with a giant stick of butter painted on its exterior, which is the closest thing to a mission statement you'll find on a building. Inside, the case runs to tiramisu brownies, apple crumb tarts, and cherry almond breakfast cakes, with a box of six getting you a sixth free. The coffee and tea come from the Dose people, so the golden chai arrives under soft whipped cream. The maritozzi is how you end up buying a second box.

1. The Infatuation The 15 Best Bakeries In Nashville

Skinny Dennis is a honky-tonk dive that moved down from New York and blended in so well you'd swear it grew up on Gallatin Pike. The drinks are cheap, the music is live Americana, and the frozen coffee arrives in a blue bodega cup, which is a lot of cowboy for a coffee. Line dancers take over the back while pool players try to negotiate through them. Sundays bring a vintage market, so you can buy the fringe jacket on the spot.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

1. The Infatuation The 15 Best Bakeries In Nashville

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in Nashville

The Authentique is a French wine bar on Gallatin Avenue that went all in on art nouveau: Mucha paintings, embossed wallpaper, and a bar lined with bottles, like a Parisian apartment someone's romantic cousin decorated. The list leans Burgundy, picpoul, and Châteauneuf-du-Pape, with flights for the indecisive. The savory crepes are the draw, especially the raclette one, which makes a strong case for never ordering wine alone again.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

Yeast is a small East Nashville bakery built around the kolache, the Czech pastry Texans have been quietly keeping to themselves. The sweet Bohemian versions come filled with fruit, and the savory Tex-Czech ones run toward sausage, cheddar, and jalapeño. A few tables and a tiny patio exist, but the move is to carry your bag across the street to East Park and eat on a bench like a person with nowhere to be.

1. The Infatuation The 15 Best Bakeries In Nashville

The elongated leaf-shaped island bar, ringed in mustard yellow and sage green stools, sets the tone here: grown-up, art deco, easy jazz in the background. This is a proper cocktail bar where sitting at the counter is the point, not a fallback while you wait for a table. The bartenders are worth watching, and the cocktail menu gives you plenty of reasons to stay put.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A small espresso counter tucked into the side of a vintage clothing and furniture store, Earl serves coffee through a brick-inlaid window that connects the two spaces. Grab a seasonal flavored drink, then wander the racks next door, which is about as Nashville as an afternoon gets. The grab-and-go cooler stocks bites from a local caterer, worth checking before you leave.

1. The Infatuation The ‘It’ Coffee Shops Across America Right Now

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Clinton Gray, Derrick Moore, and Emanuel Reed

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Clinton Gray, Derrick Moore, and Emanuel Reed

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Clinton Gray, Derrick Moore, and Emanuel Reed

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Restauranteur in the Face of Adversity · Best of Nashville · Austin Ray
2. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Neighborhood Empire Builder · Best of Nashville · Austin Ray

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Restauranteur in the Face of Adversity · Best of Nashville · Austin Ray
2. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Neighborhood Empire Builder · Best of Nashville · Austin Ray

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Neighborhood Empire Builder · Best of Nashville · Austin Ray
2. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Restauranteur in the Face of Adversity · Best of Nashville · Austin Ray

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Under-the-Radar Coffee Empire · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best All-Day Breakfast · Best of Nashville

Butcher & Bee is a Middle Eastern-leaning, mostly meatless sit-down restaurant on Main Street, and it adds a 2.2 percent charge to every check to fund staff health insurance. The kitchen takes seasonality seriously enough that August arrives as tomatoes in everything, cocktails included. The "Order Like a Pro" option hands the menu to the cooks, a relief if you hate choosing. Nashville Scene has named it Best Restaurant.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Restaurant · Best of Nashville
2. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Seasonal Menus · Best of Nashville

Close Company is a cocktail bar in the Neuhoff District, a Nashville outpost of New York's Death & Co., set in a big, open, colorful adaptive-reuse space. The menu favors familiar drinks with a twist, like a Bitter Melon Negroni, and the Wray & Ting pairs Jamaican rum with grapefruit soda. Food comes out of a cubby counter you retrieve it from yourself. Ordering a vodka tonic here is a bold way to announce yourself. Nashville Scene named it Best New Bar in 2025.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best New Bar · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best New 'Cue · Best of Nashville

Haraz is a Yemeni coffee shop in East Nashville, part of a chain that has grown from one Dearborn storefront to dozens of locations. The draw is mufawar, a cardamom-infused coffee served hot or cold, plus Turkish coffee and a short pastry case with sweet and savory options. Order at the counter and ask questions, because the staff will happily explain anything unfamiliar. Nashville Scene named it Best Overlooked Coffee Shop.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Overlooked Coffee Shop · Best of Nashville

Little Rey is a fast-casual taco counter on West End from the Atlanta restaurateur Ford Fry, and the sauce-and-salsa bar is the real draw, with two green salsas, one mild and citrusy, one spicy and creamy. Smoky steak tacos and whole rotisserie-style chickens come out fast, George Jones plays overhead, and there's free parking and a patio you wouldn't expect on this stretch. Nashville Scene named it Best New Fast-Casual Joint.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best New Fast-Casual Joint · Best of Nashville

Spicy Boy's is a casual Cajun counter-service joint in Cleveland Park, the sort of place where you order at the register and eat with plastic forks. The gumbo is a smoky, densely layered stew that has talked more than one regular out of their stated plan to branch out. The Nashville Scene has handed out Best of Nashville nods for the gumbo, a rum-heavy Painkiller, and a root beer float, so dessert is covered.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Float: Root Beer Float · Best of Nashville
2. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Gumbo · Best of Nashville
3. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Frozen Drink: Painkiller · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best New Lunch Spot · Best of Nashville

Urban Cowboy Bar is a cocktail bar on the second floor of downtown's Arcade, where the taxidermy, neon, and leaded glass have clearly been arranged by someone who owns a good lamp. The drinks are carefully made, and the pizza comes by the slice, which keeps the evening from getting too serious. Looking down over the Arcade gives the room a big-city feel, and Nashville Scene named it Best Bar Spinoff in 2025.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Bar Spinoff · Best of Nashville

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Southeast · Mailea Weger

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best Dessert Special: Bread Pudding · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Brewery for Last-Minute Gatherings · Best of Nashville
2. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best Under-the-Radar Business Magnate · Best of Nashville · Wesley Keegan

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Fancy Sushi · Best of Nashville

All Or Nothing is a bagel shop built around a wood-fired oven and a pun: "All" for everything, "Nothing" for plain, both sourdough. It began as a folding table and a pizza oven outside a drum shop and has since graduated to an Airstream. Order at the window, expect schmears made in-house, and watch a summer series hand the griddle to local food trucks. It has won Best New Bagel Spot and Best Chef Series from the Nashville Scene.

1. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best Chef Series: Camp Bagel · Best of Nashville
2. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best New Bagel Spot · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Old Nashville Hangout · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Old-School Dessert: Chocolate Malt Cake · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Seasonal Donuts · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best Coffee-on-the-Go · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Addition to Germantown · Best of Nashville

Frankies is a pizza and sandwich spot on Cherokee Avenue that treats cheese like a serious hobby. The stracciatella arrives with red-onion agrodolce, pistachios, and a drizzle of olive oil good enough that they now ship it around the country. There's a fennel sausage sandwich, and the pizza has collected a few Nashville Scene Best of Nashville nods. Casual, counter-ish, and best approached with a plan to share, if you're the sharing type.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Cheese Thing · Best of Nashville
2. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best New Sandwich: Fennel Sausage Sandwich · Best of Nashville
3. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best New Pizza · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Pita · Best of Nashville

Green Chili is a casual Indian spot in a Rivergate strip, beneath Vietnam Veterans Boulevard, across from a Hooters and next to a church that used to be a Circuit City. It's easy to miss, which is how Nashville Scene ended up naming it the Best Tucked-Away Indian Restaurant. The servers will joke with you about the spice levels, and the owners also run the Japanese steakhouse in town, so apparently they just know hospitality.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Tucked-Away Indian Restaurant · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Back-of-House Vibes · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Back-of-House Vibes · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Back-of-House Vibes · Best of Nashville

Halls Catch is a seafood restaurant on West End with a dining room dressed in iridescent fish-scale walls and a wave sculpture on the ceiling, which is a lot of commitment to a theme. The better trick is the back bar, tucked down a short hall, where walls of windows open onto a downtown skyline from an angle almost nobody sees. Nashville Scene named it Best Hideaway Bar with a View in 2025, so the secret is now technically printed.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Hideaway Bar with a View · Best of Nashville

Harriet's Rooftop is a bar on the 19th floor of 1 Hotel, where the designers apparently decided the Nashville skyline could use some competition from a lot of plants. Charred-wood accents and clusters of soft seating break the big space into smaller corners, and the outdoor bar keeps fire pits going for chilly nights. Expect hotel-rooftop prices, and it holds a Nashville Scene Best of Nashville nod for rooftop design.

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Rooftop Bar Design · Best of Nashville
2. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Decadent Whiskey Tasting · Best of Nashville

Hometeam Pizza is a casual pizza spot on Alabama Avenue where the ranch gets nearly as much attention as the slices. The co-owner built it from sour cream, mayonnaise, and buttermilk, then fussed with the spices until it came out pourable but not runny, which is a standard most bottled versions never attempt. Nashville Scene named it Best Ranch Dressing, and her husband says it's what she gets complimented on most, after the kids.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Ranch Dressing · Best of Nashville

Honeytree is an East Side meadery, which means you're drinking fermented honey in a taproom instead of ordering a flight and pretending to know what a Viking would have wanted. Mead tends to run sweet, and the ginger candied in house is what pulls their Sweet Baby Ginger back toward something you could drink at a normal pace. It won a Best of Nashville from the Scene for exactly that. Dress is whatever you wore to work.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Mead: Sweet Baby Ginger · Best of Nashville

A Victorian mansion that once housed Nashville's mayor now houses a Southern restaurant with a commitment so strict on local sourcing that the menu can change daily. Wood-burning ovens do heavy work, meaning plenty of smoked, grilled, and barbecued dishes done in the classic style. Tables downstairs look out over the vegetable gardens, which, given how directly those gardens inform your plate, feels less like a view and more like disclosure.

1. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best Restaurant · Best of Nashville
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery