Bar Cala Cala Brings 'Hi-Fi Discoteca' to East Nashville

If there's one thing to take away from the Nashville dining scene right now, it's that there simply aren't enough "hi-fi discoteca" culinary experiences. Thankfully, that wretched period is coming to an end: Bar Cala Cala has arrived with natural wines, raw fish and, importantly, a disco ball.

Brought to life by chefs Ryan Costanza (Present Tense) and Joshua Walker (Xiao Bao), Bar Cala Cala is both a listening room and a restaurant, with a menu of "Italian coastal cooking" taking center stage. It's the first collaboration for the two chefs and restaurateurs, who've brought high-energy, personality-forward concepts to the city in the past few years.

Costanza's Wedgewood-Houston restaurant Present Tense is also built around a high-end sound system, which he pairs with izakaya-style dishes, often luring a chic crowd that looks like it just stepped off the red-eye from Los Angeles. Walker, meanwhile, made the leap from Charleston to Nashville in 2022, opening Xiao Bao in East Nashville's McFerrin Park neighborhood with his wife Duolan Li. There they serve hand-pulled noodles in a dining room styled like a retro Chinese American diner, its location marked by a giant fiberglass strawberry.

The result of their collaboration is a dimly lit, late-night oasis at 930 McFerrin Ave. The space, designed by the chef-partners, is chic but laid-back, with plaster walls, marble surfaces and draperies. Through four vintage Klipschorn speakers, expect all genres of music, from Ethiopian jazz and Italian disco to "summer rock hits of the '90s, and early 2000s female pop hits."

Snacks and drinks start at 4 p.m.; dinner is served nightly from 5 to 9 p.m. in the bar and dining room, where diners can try bites like lemon risotto arancini and Sicilian crudo or swordfish Milanese with olive salsa verde and preserved lemon. (Reservations are available here.) Then they can stick around for after-dinner drinks. There will be spritzes, of course, in keeping with the bar's breezy Italian spirit; stiffer offerings include a selection of negronis and other cocktails.

The room is designed to move seamlessly from dinner to hanging out late into the night. The bar stays open until midnight Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, and until 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday. The bar is closed Monday and Tuesday. 

Diners and listeners won't have trouble finding the place. The generously sized red neon sign makes it easy to spot, and the giant clamshell out front (a cousin of Xiao Bao's strawberry) leaves no room for error.

Stay tuned for more from Bar Cala Cala: Walker and Costanza plan to open a mysterious upstairs space by the end of the year.