Epice is a restaurant in Nashville focused on Lebanese- and Middle Eastern–influenced cuisine. The menu emphasizes composed plates and traditional flavors in a full-service setting.

Epice is Nashville's best Lebanese restaurant — mezze, flatbreads, and Eastern Mediterranean cooking done with the kind of knowledge and warmth that makes every visit feel like a homecoming.

Elliston Place Soda Shop is a long-standing Nashville diner serving classic American comfort food. The menu centers on burgers, milkshakes, and traditional diner fare.

Elliston Place Soda Shop is a Nashville time capsule — a lunch counter diner that's been serving the same short-order food since 1939 and doesn't need your opinion about it.

Xiao Bao is a chef-driven restaurant in Nashville offering bold, Southeast Asian–influenced cooking in a full-service setting. The menu emphasizes small plates and layered flavors.

Xiao Bao is Nashville's best Chinese restaurant — regional dishes done with real knowledge, a menu that goes well beyond General Tso's, and cooking that rewards the diner who orders beyond the familiar.

Iggy’s is a neighborhood restaurant in Nashville focused on Italian-American cooking with a bar-driven format. The menu emphasizes pasta, small plates, and sit-down dining in an informal setting.

Iggy's has the neighborhood restaurant formula dialed in — unpretentious space, food that punches above its weight, and the kind of regulars-welcome vibe that keeps people coming back.

etc is a small, chef-driven restaurant in East Nashville with a rotating menu and a kitchen that has a clear point of view it isn't interested in softening.

The rotating menu is the format. The kitchen is doing serious work in a small space. This rewards the curious and punishes those looking for something predictable.

Maiz de la Vida is Nashville's masa-forward Mexican kitchen — nixtamalized corn tortillas, properly made salsas, and a commitment to the ingredient that produces the best tacos in the city.

The tortillas are made from scratch on properly nixtamalized corn. Everything builds from that foundation. The salsas are made rather than purchased. The specials are where the most interesting cooking happens.

V Modern Italian charges fine dining prices for cooking that can't consistently justify them. The room outperforms the kitchen.

The menu reads confidently. The room is beautiful. The execution is inconsistent in ways that define the experience — flavors that arrive muddled, technique that shows gaps, and a price point that assumes the kitchen is clearing bars it isn't.

Sho Pizza Bar is a Nashville restaurant focused on Japanese-inspired pizza served in a casual setting. The menu emphasizes a narrow, specialized offering.

Sho Pizza Bar is the most interesting pizza in Nashville — a Japanese-influenced approach to the Neapolitan tradition that produces pies unlike anything else in the city.

Pelato is a Nashville restaurant focused on Italian-inspired cooking with a contemporary approach. The menu emphasizes pasta and composed dishes in a full-service format.

Pelato is doing gelato and Italian-inspired food at a level that justifies the cult following. The frozen stuff alone is worth the detour.

5th & Taylor is a full-service American restaurant in Germantown serving seasonal food shaped by Southern traditions. The menu blends classic preparations with contemporary techniques in a traditional dining setting.

5th & Taylor is a Germantown restaurant doing thoughtful American cooking in a beautiful space — one of Nashville's more consistently excellent farm-to-table experiences.

Bastion is a Michelin-starred tasting menu restaurant and bar in Wedgewood-Houston helmed by chef Josh Habiger — one of Nashville's first fine dining destinations and still one of its best, with a come-as-you-are bar and nachos on one side and a 24-seat hidden dining room on the other.

The best meal in Nashville, served in a room that somehow doesn't take itself too seriously. This is the one.

Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint is a barbecue restaurant in Nashville serving whole-hog and smoked meats. The menu emphasizes traditional barbecue plates and sandwiches.

Pat Martin's whole-hog BBQ institution is the undisputed real deal — smoke-forward, no-nonsense, and unapologetically Southern. If Nashville BBQ has a standard-bearer, this is it.

The Mockingbird is a 12 South neighborhood restaurant doing upscale American comfort food with enough care to make it worth the visit.

The cooking is composed and seasonally driven. The bar program is strong. A comfortable room for a dinner that doesn't require a special occasion.