When choosing a “best” restaurant in Nashville, it’s always a little problematic to try to analyze Strategic Hospitality’s Bastion and The Catbird Seat. While each is unilaterally excellent, the entire dining experience is so controlled that it’s difficult to compare them with other restaurants that operate more at the whim of their customers. No matter, these two are still among the most important restaurants in the region, as masters of hospitality, drivers of culinary trends and incubators for young chefs who go on to improve the Nashville dining scene with their own restaurants.
Considering how much control Bastion and The Catbird Seat like to have over the entire dining process, from taking reservations weeks in advance for a coveted space at their chefs’ tables to the final flourish of dessert, they have both rolled admirably with the punches of the past two years. Bastion chef Josh Habiger, of course, was one of the opening chefs at Catbird and begat many of the city’s favorite kitchen leaders through the years. Current Catbird chef Brian Baxter is one of those, having excelled in the Bastion kitchen along with Husk and Atlanta’s Cold Beer on the way to running his own kitchen on Division Street.
Both chefs offer thoughtful, intricately plated dishes that combine thematically to create complete meals of small courses. Drink pairings are also integral components of the dining experience at Bastion and Catbird, and their beverage programs are among the best in town. It’s been fun to watch Habiger and Baxter develop their individual styles of cooking through the years, with Habiger really digging on Nordic cuisine currently and Baxter introducing Japanese elements to the farm-fresh ingredients that he learned to worship while at Husk. We look forward to seeing what comes next from these important restaurants.
