Fine dining in Nashville...we found it
 

We recently returned from a six night stay in Nashville. We drove up from Atlanta for a little get-away.

We are foodies (my last Fodors report was on Paris restaurants) and I researched Chowhound, Egullet and others to help me compile a list. We were not interested in chains but rather in independent, locally owned restaurants, especially chef-owned.

We made six perfect choices; all served good food and had pleasant and efficient waitstaff. All except one had valet parking. We would happily return to all of them.

We made reservations at 8 PM and generally were among the last patrons in the restaurant.

Radius 10 radius10.com : Sleek and contemporary.

Watermark watermark-restaurant.com : The grits souffle lived up to its hype! In a loft building, restaurant is on the second floor with a glass wall and an nice view of downtown.

Tayst http://www.tayst.info/ Great! (I met whifflechef :-) )

Zola restaurantzola.com I loved the beet and heat salad. The food was very artistically presented.

Margot Cafe Margotcafe.com In East Nashville and more casual than the others. Wonderful crusty bread! There is a large parking lot next to it.

Flyte flytenashville.com Fabulous food. DH's favorite. The last bite was as good as the first!

Two restaurants that we would have liked to have tried but ran out of time were Cityhouse in Germantown and F. Scott's.

Our lunches were nonexistent or nondescript other than Radius 10 and Germantown Cafe, both recommended by me.

We found Nashville to be pleasant with a nearly empty downtown but more crowded on the west side. The people we met were all very friendly.

We enjoyed our stay.

Wow, you did chose some of the best restaurants in the city. Glad you had a good time.

Congrats on finding some great places to eat here in Nashville, impressive! Next time you come back, try Mambu, seems you would like it.

Thanks, sooz and jumper for your replies. You have reason to be proud of your city as it is friendly and clean and has good restaurants with cordial staffs.

A California friend asked me about BBQ. We live in Atlanta so BBQ doesn't hold the same fascination as perhaps for visitors from other parts of the country so we did not seek out BBQ places.

Not only did I research before the trip, we also asked servers of the restaurants where else they would recommend. The same few restaurants were mentioned again and again. Mambu was one of them and I am sure we would have been happy there as well.

Do either of you have a favorite in the list I posted?

I love Margot's Cafe and Zola but they are all good. Andrew Chadwick's at Rutledge Hill seems to be the new hot restaurant but I haven't tried it yet.

I just returned from a technical conference in Nashville. I didn't expect to find awesome food in Nashville but the Sheraton concierge steered me to this restaurant and it was excellent -
Sunset Grill 2001 Belcourt Ave
Nashville, TN 37212
* great fish dish
* good wine selection
* 3 chocolate dessert trio was out of this world
* shuttle driver that drives the free shuttle from downtown to this restaurant is a gem - I would have loved to hire her for a private tour but she said that she only drove the shuttle to the restaurant.

Enjoy! Fritch