Best Restaurant in Nashville 2026: Noko
All right, all right, we get it! In 2024, Scene readers selected newcomer Noko in the Best Restaurant category, while I preferred to give Husk its flowers in writers’ choices for more than a decade of consistent farm-to-table excellence. In 2025, readers awarded Noko BONs for Best Japanese Restaurant, Best Restaurant and Best Service, while I rewarded Butcher & Bee for a decade of consistent farm-to-table excellence. While I stand by those picks, you’ve done it again, and sometimes you’ve just gotta listen to the people. Scene readers have been right all along!
Noko once again won Best Restaurant in our readers’ poll and stands above the pack for many reasons. The way they treat their employees is exemplary, as documented in these pages many times before. Their menu dances between traditional, playful and downright quirky, with a special emphasis on adding smoke and umami in unexpected places.
What really stood out to me on a recent visit to Noko was realizing how genuinely happy everyone was to be there that night. From the rideshare driver who dropped me off and was thrilled to immediately pick up a return fare (a couple just finishing their early-bird meal), to an eight-top of friends who were genuinely tickled to be spending time together enjoying the food and the ambience, to what was obviously a first date at the table next to us (whoever chose Noko and scored a coveted reservation clearly earned major points from their dining companion) — everyone seemed genuinely ecstatic to be there. That includes the staff, who touched every table and exuded the kind of amiable hospitality and genuine warmth that co-owners Jon Murray, Wilson Brannock and Junior Vo place at the center of any Noko experience or interaction. Even the pair of extremely hardworking firemasters tending the infernal open-fire wood grill did so with genuine smiles. Who knows? Y’all may still be giving Noko the BON for 10 more years!
Past Best of Nashville wins: Noko also took Best Service (2026, 2025), Best Japanese Restaurant (2026, 2025) and Best Restaurant (2026, 2025, 2024) in the Readers' Poll. In our Writers’ Choice they’ve been named Best Restaurant Bar Experience (2024).
