With her new series "The People's Places," contributor Jennifer Justus will provide short takes on longtime local restaurants, markets and bars that deserve another look.
I don’t get out of the house as often these days, so when I do, I sometimes over-order food in a flurry of zeal. It happened recently at Anatolia, the White Bridge Road restaurant opened 17 years ago by two Turkish brothers. As I ticked off the list of things we hoped to try, I sheepishly acknowledged our gluttony to the server, Murat, thinking maybe he’d respond with a line about how we can always take some of it home. But his reply was way better.
“It’s OK,” he said. “You have time.”
With an answer as fresh as the food, I feel like he was telling me to take it easy. Chill out. Allow yourself a moment of pleasure in this crazy world. And since he wasn’t having any of my guilt, it straightened me into humbly counting my blessings for the opportunity to (occasionally) over-order and support this spot in the first place.
I haven’t felt ready for indoor dining just yet, so we chose to sit at one of the few outdoor tables under the cover of the strip mall’s awning. The sun was setting over the nearby Chipotle, with the red glow of the Trader’s Joe’s sign nearby. So yeah, a parking lot isn’t exactly a seaside view. But these days, the fresh air, open space and cooler evenings also feel like a revelation. Again, what a joy to be out of the house! Plus the folks at Anatolia have done their best to make the space safe and special — cantaloupe-colored table linens covered in second layer of white, crisp butcher paper and European-style woven bistro chairs.
“I feel like I’ve had my own private dining experience,” I heard a woman a table over say to the server.
Anatolia’s owners, Huseyin and Harun Ustunkaya, came to the United States from Turkey as interns at the Nashville Airport Marriott. (Huseyin was 31 then. He’s now 52.) They worked for a couple of years at Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center and eventually joined the ranks of so many other immigrants who draw on life experiences to open businesses and enrich our neighborhoods. According to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, it happens at a rate of 2-to-1 compared to native-born Tennesseans. Harun works as head chef, which Huseyin says contributes to the consistency in quality over the years. Huseyin handles more front-of-house. Many of the servers have been with them since the beginning.
“It’s fun you know, we have the same background,” Huseyin says of his brother. “We worked for the same hotels and went to the same school. We have four years difference.”
The pandemic has changed things, of course, including an uptick in takeout orders over dining in. But Huseyin — tall and lean with pressed blue button-down and navy slacks — has a steady calm and a quiet, gentle way about him. Even as the restaurant started to get busier on a recent Friday night after what appeared to be a slow start, Huseyin rearranged tables to accommodate folks as the hostess joined the only other server to help take care of tables. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to staff a restaurant during the unpredictable days of a pandemic.
“We are a neighborhood restaurant,” Huseyin says. “Nashville is growing, but it didn’t really change our customers. We have a lot of repeat regular customers.”
Indeed, you can a tell a good local spot by the way folks find it as a place to feel comfortable, a place to celebrate, a place to be as you are. We saw people in athleisure wear and T-shirts, right alongside folks in stilettos with Louis Vuitton bags. We saw couples on date nights as well as a family of four with two young kids and mom still in scrubs, maybe just off work at a nearby hospital.
“Most people are coming here for health and the homemade freshness,” Huseyin says.
A large portion of the menu is indeed plant-based. But there’s also manti, called Turkish ravioli on the menu. Fresh dough wraps up imperfect little dumplings of spiced ground beef, nestled into a garlicky yogurt with a swirl of butter glistening orange with red pepper.
“It’s home-style," says Huseyin of the dish. "You don’t see it in most restaurants."
With the help of pita, we mopped up plates of haydari, house-made yogurt blended with garlic, walnut and carrot, as well as ezme, which tastes fresh like a Tennessee garden — finely chopped tomatoes, cucumber and garlic with a kick of pepper. For the full Turkish experience, Huseyin also suggests eggplant or lamb. The Anatolia eggplant dish has both — tender bites of lamb in a tomato-based stew, cozy inside an eggplant with its insides softened to silk.
I'd visit again just for dessert. The kunefe is a favorite. Wisps of phyllo cut into a million tiny shards, sandwiching a pancake of unsalted cheese, and then married, softened and lightly sweetened with syrup and the crunch of pistachio on top.
We lingered over Turkish coffee served in Anatolia's intricate cups wishing we had the knowhow, in Turkish tradition, to read the future in these times from the grinds left behind. But as the server instructed, we did all we could to soak up the moment just as it is. And only then, did Murat bring the to-go boxes.
