Plateau Magazine June-July 2023

The Country Music
Hall of Fame and
Museum.
National Museum
of African American
Music
dive into various genres of Black music like gospel, rap and soul.
A sense of history comes courtesy of innovative listening stations,
which offer an auditory journey through the musical sphere of
hundreds of Black artists—their peers, their followers and those
who had influenced them.
But while music might be the banner that identifies Nashville,
it has also shaped the city, drawing thousands of creative types—
some musicians, some not—who have opened restaurants, galleries
and shops in neighborhoods all over the metro area.
For visitors like me, that influx of creativity means there’s a
huge variety of cool, off-beat and interesting things to eat, drink
and do in Nashville. There’s a slew of new hotels, too, including a
235-room Four Seasons, where programs like private songwriter
sessions and VIP access to the Gibson Guitar Garage translates
the brand’s signature elegance through a musical lens. ONE Hotel
might be the site of Nashville’s hottest rooftop bar, but the
welcoming guest rooms are as hushed as they are comfortable.
Even better, the luxury property is focused on sustainability,
both in design and operations. For guests, that means rooms
filled with live plants, in-room water dispensers and organic body
products from the British brand Bamford that smell like a summer
garden.
Where to Shop & Eat
Legendary record and book shop Grimey’s also serves as a smallscale
music venue, hosting local groups who play on a small stage
in the back. Up the road but a world away, it was hard not to get
lost in the gorgeous artwork at the elegant LeQuire Gallery,
where a shy shop goat clickety-clacks around the gallery doing
her best impression of a shop dog.
I wish I’d had more time to shop at ABLE, which got its start
selling scarves made by women coming out of the sex trade in
Ethiopia. As the company grew, it began to offer sustainable jobs
to more and more women, who, today, design and create jewelry,
handbags, clothing and shoes in Ethiopia, Brazil, Mexico, China,
Portugal and Nashville.
I ate well in Nashville, too, starting at Chauhan Ale & Masala
House, where chef Maneet Chauhan’s mashup of Indian and
Southern cuisines—nachos made from spicy keema and crispy
Indian papadi instead of tortilla chips; fritter-like Nashville
hot cauliflower pakora—was a delicious departure from what
I thought would be a weekend of Southern fare. Dinner at the
Nashville location of Butcher & Bee was another explosion of
flavors, some familiar, others not, but all delicious. As innovative
dishes like citrus salad with creamy labneh and pepper jelly
vinaigrette; whipped feta with fermented honey and an amazing
pastrami-spiced tri-tip roast appeared on the table, I was glad we
were eating family style.
I spent one entire day eating food prepared by Chef Sean
Brock, who got his start cooking in Nashville, became a legend
in Charleston with the restaurant Husk and, in 2014, returned
to Nashville.
My first two meals were combined into a brunch of champions
at Brock’s kid-friendly Joyland that included an egg, bacon
and cheddar sandwich on a meltingly soft biscuit, a malted
milkshake, part of a cheeseburger and too many fries to count.
Dinner was at Audrey, which Brock opened in 2021 as an ode to
his grandmother, who taught him both to taste and to cook. Her
legacy lives on at the restaurant, which serves perfect iterations
of classic Appalachian dishes, but with dashes of brilliance that
transform each dish from simple to sublime. Truffles, it turns out,
give chicken and dumplings a shot of umani that make a great
dish better; horseradish sabayon bathes oysters in silky warmth
that still allows their sweetness to shine through. Desserts were
deceivingly simple, like my butternut squash, which had been
roasted in maple syrup until it couldn’t hold another drop. It arrived
warm, atop a pool of homemade butterscotch pudding, with
a scoop of butter pecan ice cream melting alongside. Instead of
putting the dish over the edge, the accompanying drift of whipped
cream served, oddly and happily, as a palate cleanser.
Like many creative types who have made Nashville their home,
Chef Brock found himself drawn back to the city by its energy
and spirit. “There’s a lot of creative momentum in Nashville right
now,” he says. “For people with big dreams, it’s the place to be. P
Grimey’s
New & Preloved
Music record
store
June/July 2023 | 119