The Best Places in East Nashville

A tapas spot tucked into the ground floor of an East Nashville apartment building, Peninsula is the kind of place that makes you feel slightly smug for knowing about it. The cooking roams the Iberian Peninsula while borrowing freely from wherever else it pleases, landing in combinations that sound odd and taste inevitable. The chef took a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southeast, and the Michelin Guide lists it as a Bib Gourmand.

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Winner · Best Chef: Southeast · Jake Howell
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Chef · Best of Nashville · Jake Howell

A converted church sanctuary in East Nashville, which at least explains the soaring ceilings and the sense that something meaningful is happening here. The wine list runs over a hundred bottles, and the bar anchoring the room doubles as a social hub for groups settling in for the night. The kitchen plays it loose, moving between bar snacks and more serious plates. Chef Colby Rasavong picked up a Food and Wine Best New Chefs nod in 2025, and the Times put it on their restaurant list that same year.

1. Food & Wine Colby Rasavong · Best New Chefs
2. USA Today Restaurants of the Year
3. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants

The darkly tinted windows and near-invisible signage in an East Nashville strip mall suggest you might have the wrong address, but push through. This casual Mexican restaurant built its following as a pandemic pop-up and landed here with a menu centered on masa, nixtamalized and ground in-house, turning up as tortillas, sopes, and tostadas. The New York Times named the asparagus tostada one of the best restaurant dishes eaten across the country in 2025. No liquor license, but the taco shop next door sells beer.

1. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best Chef Getting Bigger By Staying Small · Best of Nashville · Edgar Victoria
2. The Infatuation #8 · The Best Restaurants In Nashville
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Nashville Right Now

1. The Infatuation #14 · The Best Restaurants In Nashville
2. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Perma-Pop-Up · Best of Nashville
3. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Symbiotic Food Truck/Bar Relationship · Best of Nashville

The staff will advise you not to order the hot chicken above mild, and they mean it. Bolton's is a no-frills neighborhood soul food counter that predates the hot chicken craze by a decade, which earns it a certain authority. The fried catfish, ordered mild, makes a strong case for itself as the move here, and mild still has something to prove. A Nashville institution, in the most unpretentious sense possible.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Nashville Right Now
2. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville

1. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Nashville
2. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Pretzel · 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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Seasonal Donuts · 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

Margot is a neighborhood cafe and bar in East Nashville, the kind of dinner spot where the staff has clearly been to school for this and then politely hidden the diploma. It's been running for ages without turning fussy, which in this city is its own small feat. Nashville Scene gave it Best Service Staff, and the evidence is that nobody at your table ever feels processed.

1. Nashville Scene 2025 · Best Service Staff · Best of Nashville

Up-Down is an arcade bar in East Nashville, which means you can lose to a teenager at a cabinet game and then order a drink about it. Retro movies play on the walls, theme nights come around regularly, and the rooftop has its own bar and a skyline view. Nashville Scene named it Best Arcade Bar in 2024. The crowd skews toward grown-ups reclaiming their childhoods, quarters optional, regrets not.

1. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best Arcade Bar · Best of Nashville

Lakeside Lounge is a neighborhood dive in East Nashville with real cocktail training behind the bar, a frozen scotch-and-honey drink among them, plus darts and cheese fries. The TVs might be showing Terminator 2 and a dog show at once, and nobody blinks. The bartenders will debate your favorite Nicolas Cage movie, so pick a side first. Nashville Scene gave it Best Bar in 2023, and the menu spells espresso with an X.

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Bar · Best of Nashville
2. Nashville Scene 2024 · Best Shot: Espresso Martini Shot · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Tea · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best tongue-in-Cheek Tiki · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Milkshake: Cold Brew Milkshake · Best of Nashville

Killjoy is a small nonalcoholic bottle shop in East Nashville, shelves lined with zero-proof spirits, wines, and beers. Since nothing in the building will get anyone in trouble, you can taste before you buy, which is how you find out if alcohol-free sparkling rosé is for you. It also hosts trivia nights, book clubs, and dating events, so the name is doing a lot of ironic work. Nashville Scene gave it Best Proof That Zero-Proof Isn't Boring.

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Proof That Zero-Proof Isn't Boring · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Pierogies · Best of Nashville

1. Nashville Scene 2023 · Best Pairing · Best of Nashville