Best of Nashville 2009: Food and Drink

Best Restaurant:
Zola
Yawn. I still love Zola. Year in, year out, Zola tops the list. Lord knows, for purposes of editorial variety I'd love to tell you one of Nashville's other excellent restaurants—City House, Flyte, Watermark, Capitol Grille, Margot Café, Miro, tayst, Miel, F. Scott's or Giovanni among them—had usurped my affections since my last dîner à deux under the sand dune murals, but Zola is my Steady Eddie. Or maybe my Steady Debbie, as it's Deb Paquette and husband Ernie who bring the surefooted consistency of a couple of camels to the West End window on the Sahara. With a menu of North African and Mediterranean delights delivered in understated elegance, Zola blends the timeless flavors of a desert oasis with the inventive whimsy of a modern metropolis. Again this year. Carrington Fox

Best New Restaurant:
ChaChah
There's a lot to say about Arnold Myint's latest Belmont landmark: From the vibrant canvases on warm white walls, to the crisp candied Asian pears floating in icy martinis, Myint seizes every opportunity to delight the senses. But no matter how creative and carnal the Asian-inspired Spanish-style tapas that grace the stainless-steel chef's table may be—from spicy shrimp to braised bison short ribs served in a hollowed-out bone—it's the surprisingly shameless decadence of the abuelita that makes ChaChah dance. In a pristine teapot, Myint delivers a sultry sludge of Mexican chocolate as unexpected as the contemporary culinary sensibilities that simmer inside the vintage bungalow. Carrington Fox

Best Chef:
Jeremy Barlow, tayst

To decide this category, we used to weigh a range of variables from food quality to presentation to price. No more. Now the Scene just holds a contest—Iron Fork—in which the best chefs we can find battle it out over a secret ingredient to determine kitchen supremacy. This spring, tayst's chef/owner Barlow took home the Golden Fork after besting the competition in Battle Asparagus. With his finger on the pulse of the restaurant industry and the city's first certification from the Green Restaurant Association, Barlow is a trendsetter in local foods and sustainable business, known as much for his playful Krispy Kreme bread pudding as for his dead-serious efforts to operate an environmentally responsible enterprise. Carrington Fox

Best Meal Under $10:
Zavós
Brothers Niko and David Gehrke's Greek eatery across from the Family Wash is just the kind of restaurant East Nashville needs more of—a place to get a fresh, delicious dinner for under a sawbuck. The menu features recipes from the homeland masterminded by their mother Eleni, and nearly all of the items clock in at $8 or less. The hummus, tzatziki and eggplant on the Mediterranean platter have enough garlic to ward off the entire cast of Twilight (which is a good thing), and the beefteaki souvlaki with a side (we recommend the arraka—sweet peas cooked with crushed tomatoes, fresh dill, olive oil, salt, pepper, red onions and scallions) is the best $6 meal in town. Zavós is currently open Thursday through Saturday, with plans to be open six days a week once a liquor license is secured. Jack Silverman

Best Dining Trend:
Eating in Fields
Rather than dragging the harvest into the kitchens, chefs met the crops halfway this year, staging rustically elaborate (or elaborately rustic?) feasts in the fields where the food came from. Chef Martha Stamps teamed up with the movable feast Outstanding in the Field to host a dinner at Arugula's Star Farm; Margot McCormack of Margot Café spread a banquet of blankets across Hungry Gnome Farm; and Jeremy Barlow of tayst teamed up with Delvin Farms for a plein air pig roast. Taking the locavore movement to its al fresco extreme, such grand gastronomic gestures are reconnecting diners to their food—in a way that could change forever how we eat. Carrington Fox

Best Brunch:
Miel
An alternate title for this category could be Best Place for a Culinary Campout, because I'd like to reserve the same table at Miel for Saturday dinner and Sunday brunch and just spend the night. After a lingering evening of foie gras, escargots and trout in Seema and Jimmy Phillips' sleek Sylvan Park dining room, I'd unfurl my sleeping bag on the serene back patio and drift off into a wine-induced slumber, dreaming of orange-custard French toast and Callebaut hot chocolate. When the sun peeked up over Charlotte Pike, I'd rise to the scent of Benton's bacon and sip away the morning grogginess with a steaming French press of dark roast. Shrimp and grits, braised short ribs with poached eggs and house-made granola with macerated berries, orange zest and mint...now that's my idea of roughing it. Carrington Fox

Best Neighborhood Farmers' Market:
West Nashville Farmers' Market
Remember that scene in Something's Gotta Give, when Frances McDormand picks up Keanu Reeves at the farmstand in the Hamptons? Regardless of how you feel about Keanu Reeves, at least you can admit that all that farm-fresh produce made your heart skip a beat. In the spirit of that bountiful meet-cute, the good people at the nonprofit Good Food for Good People have launched a family-friendly gathering of local growers and artisanal food producers at the edge of Richland Park. With samples from neighborhood restaurants including Miel and Park Cafe, live music and plenty of locavore shopping, the WNFM is fast becoming a film-worthy Saturday-morning tradition. Carrington Fox