The 36 Best Places to Drink in Nashville

Polished marble, low lighting, and plush fabrics signal exactly the kind of cocktail bar that doesn't care about honky-tonk clichés. Four Walls sits inside The Joseph Nashville, but it operates on its own logic, one that skews global and sleek while the rest of the city leans into its cowboy boots. Esquire put it on their Best Bars in America list, and Food & Wine ranked it among the top hotel bars in the country.

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America
2. Food & Wine The Top 10 Hotel Bars in the US
3. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Elevated Bar Experience · Best of Nashville

The Patterson House is a cocktail bar that moved up to the top of a Gulch building and traded its old library-and-cigars gloom for a sweeping room hung with deep purple curtains. After dark they pull the drapes back to show the city lights, which suits a Manhattan fine. The food menu is big enough now that the pork chop might be your whole date night, not a warm-up for dinner.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Esquire Mushroom Martini · The Best Martinis in America
3. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Restaurant and Bar Relocation · Best of Nashville

Tiger Bar is a gin-leaning cocktail bar on Gallatin Pike dressed as a 1930s carnival sideshow, and it commits without tipping into costume party. There's a mystery cocktail wheel you can spin to let fate pick your drink, which saves you from the menu and also from yourself. The Flamin' Hot Mozz Sticks have a Nashville Scene award, and Esquire put the place on its list of America's bars.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. Esquire The Best Bars in America
3. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best Theme Bar · Best of Nashville

Rice Vice is the taproom for Proper Sake, a casual sake bar where the menu describes each pour in flavor notes so specific they border on a confession ("bubblegum funk" is a real category here). Order the citrusy nigori if you're new, or something earthier if you're not. Food means snacks, with the occasional pop-up out front. Esquire put it on its best bars in America list, and sake fans fill the room.

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America
2. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville
3. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Trend For Sake Lovers · Best of Nashville

Red leather banquettes, white tablecloths, a snappy U-shaped bar, and a shiny open kitchen pack into fifty seats on Dickerson Pike. This is a French-leaning dinner spot where smoke drifts in from a Basque-style wood-fire hearth and the wine list has Brooklyn credentials. Philip Krajeck's third Nashville restaurant has landed on the New York Times' list of Nashville's 25 best, which for a room this quietly romantic feels about right.

1. Esquire Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. USA Today Restaurants of the Year
3. The New York Times 2026 · The Restaurant List

Coral Club is a cocktail bar on the East Side, a short walk from Five Points, that goes for beachfront in a spot where Gallatin Pike is the only shoreline. It manages with mellow lighting, low-key decor, and a rooftop patio. The list runs from a gin-lemon Seasonal Fix to a straightforward Old Fashioned, plus a zero-proof option. It took Best New Cocktail Bar from the Nashville Scene.

1. Punch Best New Bartenders · Matthew Izaguirre
2. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best New Cocktail Bar · Best of Nashville
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. East

Reservations are scarce at this compact Japanese-influenced restaurant, and the walk-in line forms early. Chef Trevor Moran's menu is built around sharing plates with a precision that feels almost theatrical, from beef tartare hand rolls to rotating kakigori shaved into powdery, sculptural blocks. A Michelin star and a James Beard semifinalist nod signal the ambition; the laidback, buzzy room suggests nobody here is taking themselves too seriously.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Esquire Seaweed Martini · The Best Martinis in America
3. USA Today Restaurants of the Year

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

Old Glory is a candlelit cocktail bar in a former industrial steam plant, where the old boiler still sits in the corner and a coal hopper hangs overhead like a very heavy chandelier. Weeknights are quiet and date-friendly, while weekends turn the floor into a dance party. The drinks are spirit-forward, and the monthly lineup of drag, circus acts, and jazz nights suggests the boiler has seen weirder things than you.

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Unique Bar Entertainment: House of WOW · Best of Nashville
2. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville
3. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. East

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best U.S. Hotel Bar
2. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. East
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. East

Attaboy is a speakeasy cocktail bar in East Nashville, tucked into a concrete-block building that looks like it services HVAC units. There's no menu. The bartenders ask what you like to drink and what kind of day you've had, then handle the rest, like a therapist who works in rye. It's the Nashville sibling of the New York original, and its bar team earned a regional honor from the Spirited Awards.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery
3. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. East

The Fox is an East Nashville cocktail bar on Gallatin Pike where the snacks are taken more seriously than the name suggests. A build-your-own charcuterie board and a plate of miso deviled eggs, which people tend to order twice, make up the dinner for plenty of regulars, and a vegan menu means nobody gets stuck with the garnish. It's the Nashville Scene's pick for Best Girl Dinner, and a Spirited Awards regional honoree for its bar team.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville
2. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Girl Dinner · Best of Nashville
3. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. East

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar

1. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. East
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. East

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

Bar Roza is a cocktail bar tucked into the alley beside the Arcade, built around aperitifs and bitters rather than the usual whiskey-and-regrets lineup. The menu sorts drinks into categories, including hot-and-cold pairings and ones that make aperitifs and digestifs share custody. Small plates like mortadella focaccia are on hand for pacing yourself, which the creamsicle-tinged pisco drinks will make you appreciate.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Bars In Nashville
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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