Germantown Cafe

1200 Fifth Ave. N. 242-3226

Lunch: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tues.-Fri. Dinner: 5-10 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Brunch: 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat.-Sun.

Price range: $$-$$$

The wonderful dinner I so enjoyed at Germantown Cafe on a recent stormy Wednesday night was the first time I had dined in this restaurant, but it wasn't the first time I had wined and dined at the corner of Fifth Avenue North and Madison Street.

My previous, and quite pleasant, experience at this very site was when business partners Andrée LeQuire and Scott Chambers invited a small group over to their neighborhood for some wine and hors d'oeuvres. The visionary duo—who work together as real estate developers under the name Germantown Partners—were unveiling what was then a shell of the mixed-use building that would become six apartments on the upper floor and a retail space on the street level. They were hoping that we would know someone who might know someone who might be enticed into opening a restaurant on the first floor to serve this rapidly growing historic neighborhood, a harmonious mix of longtime residents and newcomers.

It was a lovely evening. We sat on folding chairs on unfinished floors, looking out through glassless windows as the setting sun lit the top of the State Capitol with an ethereal glow; neighbors out walking, running or strolling with their children paused to say hello. It was absolutely heavenly. Closing my eyes, I imagined a wonderful little bistro, with just this view and just this neighborly charm, filled with the ambient sounds of lively dining and drinking.

Over the course of the next few months, I'm sure I told a dozen different restaurateurs and entrepreneurs about the spectacular potential of this delightful location in Germantown. I just didn't tell the right people, which is fine with me, because as it turns out, the perfect people did hear about it and fell in love with it as I had. They have since turned it into a perfectly captivating restaurant that sparks a love affair with everyone it lures inside.

Ironically, Chris Lowry and Jay Luther had to leave town to find a home for the restaurant they'd long dreamed of opening in Nashville. Jay, who is from here, and Chris, an Atlantan who attended Vanderbilt, met while working in the dining industry. Jay, who does the back of the house, and Chris, who does the front of the house, had worked in several seminal independent restaurants here, among them Midtown Café and a few of Jody Faison's ventures. Wanting to ratchet up their experience and education, they decided to move to Atlanta and went to work for the Peasant Restaurants. "We thought it would be a good learning experience, and it was," says Lowry. "Here was a company that began with nothing 20 years ago, grew to be very big and successful, then took a dive. It showed us what to do and what not to do."

A couple of years ago, while still living and working in Atlanta, they began making exploratory trips back to Music City, and wound up entering into serious negotiations to purchase an existing restaurant. "It was not going well," Lowry recalls. "It was really tough, and at one point I got really frustrated and said to a friend that it would probably be easier just to start our own restaurant."

Bing, bang, boom. That friend happened to know the space at the corner of Fifth and Madison, introduced Lowry and Luther to LeQuire and Chambers, and before anyone could say, "Are you ready to order?," a deal was in the works. Luther moved back to Nashville in June 2003, with Lowry following a month later. Construction began in August, and on Oct. 16, Germantown Cafe opened.

As every foodie knows, there is much to be said for cooking from scratch. Lowry and Luther had a recipe for success firmly in mind. "We felt that the upscale, casual thing here had sort of evolved into more fine-dining than casual, and that while Nashville's tastes and habits had become more sophisticated, it seemed to us that a niche for straightforward dining in a semi-elegant setting was there to be filled."

Lowry is being modest on the latter count, as Germantown impressed us as being quite elegant and sophisticated. While the contemporary-styled room is of a minimalist bent—aubergine-painted walls, tobacco-brown cork floor, spot lighting and a blond-wood half-wall dividing diners from drinkers—that brevity in decor generously frames the spectacular tableau outside the expansive windows and French doors. The composition simultaneously offers a close-up seat on this cozy neighborhood and a sweeping panorama of downtown Nashville, dotted with modern skyscrapers, the Coliseum, the Farmers Market and William Strickland's 1850s State Capitol building.

At night, when the urban landscape is dramatically illuminated near and far, it would be a shame to have to labor too long to study a menu so complicated as to require a culinary dictionary. But you won't have to, since Luther adheres to the promise of straightforward dining in the style of classic bistros. While many restaurants call themselves bistros, few meet the definition as well as this cafe, which remains consistent to the theme with unpretentious, well-prepared food, sturdy white china, thick cotton linens, solid stemware and cutlery with a weighty heft.

Let a taste of the Left Bank roll off your tongue with the French onion soup or the escargot baked in mushroom caps, which begin and end the selection of appetizers. Or stay closer to home with golden crisped puffs of squash fritter, served with a tangy buttermilk sauce, or the crab cakes, so light on filler and heavy with chunks of sweet crustacean that the sight of an approaching fork causes them to break apart on the plate. The mustard-tartar sauce is a zippy departure from the rémoulade that usually accompanies this dish. As much as we wanted to love them, it was not a good night for the fried green tomatoes, sliced too thin and fried too long, though we did like the flavor contrasts that the sweet red pepper sauce and goat cheese delivered; these are sure to improve as local green tomatoes arrive at the Farmers Market. The Southwestern chicken strudel layers breast meat and spicy cream cheese between leaves of flaky phyllo pastry.

Perusing the selection of entrées is pleasantly effortless, with just 10 to consider, including a green plate for vegetarians, three crab cakes sided with steak fries and green beans, and a pasta of the day. Meat and potatoes is the starting premise of several dishes, with the supremely succulent mustard-herb-crusted rack of lamb presented on a mound of mashed potatoes leading the way. Both steak selections are brash and bold, and I'd hate to have to choose between the New York strip, with its distinctive, flavorful char-crust of salt, pepper, brown sugar and hickory ash, or the beefy grilled hanger steak—the butcher's tenderloin.

Regular customers come back again and again to the plum pork: tender, mustard-marinated medallions of the other white meat, kicked up with a toothsome plum sauce. The preparation of the day's catch changes every night, but the coconut curry salmon filet perched atop a sphere of creamy risotto is a dependably delicious staple of the Germantown Cafe kitchen.

The menu will be tweaked as the season changes, and Luther has already started on a revision of the more scaled-down lunch menu. Saturday and Sunday brunch, with eggs and other breakfast goodies made to order, is an ideal prelude or postlude to a weekend stroll through the nearby Bicentennial Mall and Farmers Market.

What I saw in my mind's eye two years ago, sitting in the unfinished shell of that building at Fifth and Madison—a wonderful little bistro, with just this view and just this neighborly charm—was a vision shared by Chris Lowry and Jay Luther, who with eyes wide open have done a superb job of turning it into something even better than I imagined. Whether or not you call this part of town home, Germantown Cafe offers a warm welcome to the neighborhood.

NOTE: Germantown Cafe will be closed Saturday, May 29, through Monday, May 31, for Memorial Day Weekend.