The Critics Finally Crossed the River

For years the line on East Nashville was that it had the interesting restaurants while the west side had the important ones. That line is dead. The critics crossed the river, and the east side won.

Cafe Roze made the Michelin Guide

Cafe Roze on Porter Road is in the Michelin Guide, which is a strange thing to say about a place where you can walk in at 9am for a mango smoothie. It runs all day, seven days a week, from breakfast through dinner, and the long marble bar is the single most photographed seat in East Nashville.

Order the savory oats with a poached egg, mustard greens, and roasted shiitakes. Sit at the bar. Watch the neighborhood file through.

Kisser was a James Beard finalist

Kisser was shortlisted for the James Beard Foundation’s Best New Restaurant award, which is the industry equivalent of a Grammy nomination for a debut album.

It is also tiny, walk-in only, and open for lunch four days a week. There’s no reservation to book and no line to skip. You show up, you hope, and when you get in you understand what the fuss was.

The bench behind them

The reason the accolades landed here isn’t luck, it’s depth:

• Lyra on West Eastland does modern Middle Eastern with pita pulled hot out of a wood-burning bread oven. Dinner only, closed Sundays.
• Peninsula on Eastland is small, seasonal, Spanish and French, with a menu that changes on what showed up that week. Special without being stuffy.
• Lockeland Table has been the neighborhood’s wood-fired anchor for over a decade and hasn’t slipped a step.
• Butcher & Bee on Main looks like nothing from the sidewalk and is excellent inside.

Four more sit within a mile of them. That’s not a scene with a couple of standouts. That’s a restaurant district.

The part that matters if you’re visiting

Every restaurant above is within walking distance or a five-minute drive of The Eighteen. You can eat at a Michelin-listed room in the morning and a James Beard finalist for lunch, and never move your car — which stays parked in our lot, in a neighborhood where that sentence is a genuine luxury.

Broadway has the neon. The east side has the food.