Date Night: Woodland Wine Merchant, Aloha Fish Company and AVO

Date Night is a multipart road map for everyone who wants a nice evening out, but has no time to plan it. It’s for people who want to do more than just go to one restaurant and call it a night. It’s for overwhelmed parents who don’t get out often; for friends who visit the same three restaurants because they’re too afraid to try someplace new; and for busy folks who keep forgetting all the places they’ve driven past, heard about, seen on social and said, “Let’s remember that place next time we go out.”

Winter is not my season, Gentle Reader. The sun has many important roles, like keeping the planets in orbit and being my personal battery. Without consistently bright days and a bare minimum of 70 degrees, I’m a black-and-white version of myself. A pale blob under an oversized fleece blanket. Yes, I’ve tried supplements, and no, I’m not buying a therapy light. The only cure for my condition is spring.

When I must trade my nubby gray slippers for shoes and venture out into the world, I make it snappy. That was my initial plan when I left my early-January haircut in OneC1ty: Hustle to the parking lot, fire up the seat warmer and head home. Instead, I detoured into Aloha Fish Company, which I’d been meaning to check out since they opened in November, and left with a spicy salmon roll and a rare spark of excitement in my cold, cold heart. 

In addition to fresh fish, poke bowls and to-go meal kits, Aloha offers sushi classes. I’ve dropped not-so-subtle hints to my husband Dom for years that a sushi class would make a fun night out, none of which he picked up on. And I’ve Googled “sushi class, Nashville” a few times, but all the options had sad Airbnb Experiences vibes. I don’t want to learn how to make sushi in a brewery — I want to learn next to a display case of tuna that’s been flown in from Hawaii. Aloha is local, and looks legit. As soon as I got home, I reserved two $65 spots for a 90-minute Sunday class via Instagram DMs. Within minutes I received a confirmation note with a heads up to BYOB.

Stop 1: Woodland Wine Merchant Sylvan Park

“We’re taking a sushi class,” I said to the guy behind the counter who asked if he could help. “What can we take that’ll pair well?” 

“Now? You’re going right now?” 

“Yes.”

“OK, then it’ll need to be cold.” 

He led us to the refrigerated whites and pointed out a few, explaining how the acid in the Columna Albariño, Ladeiras do Xil O Barreiro Valdeorras or Domaine Bailly-Reverdy Sancerre would work with delicate fresh fish.

Whites aren’t my favorite. I asked about beer. 

He stepped to the right and tapped the door in front of Pap Pap’s Salted Lager by North Carolina brewery Fonta Flora. “This was inspired by a grandpa who drank Coors Banquet and put a pinch of salt in it to make it even more thirst-quenching,” our guide said, adding that it would complement the salinity of the fish.

Sold. I’m a sucker for a good story. And anything salty. 

We were done, but Woodland Wine Merchant makes me want to linger. The West Side sister of the original WWM in East Nashville’s Five Points, it feels like the Parnassus Books of alcohol — well curated and displayed, complete with recommendation tags and unobtrusive help. Instead of dreamy book jackets, stickers and greeting cards, there are artsy wine labels, strainers, shakers and muddlers. And I both need and don’t need them all.

Stop 2: Aloha Fish Company

After checking us in, Aloha co-owner Jennifer Cline had Dom and me select our spots at the standing table set for 14 in the middle of the dining area and put our belongings on the tray underneath. I asked where the chef was going to stand, and she pointed to the end of the table. This very eager pupil set up next to it. 

The middle of the table was lined with prepped fillings (sliced avocado, cucumber, jalapeño and sprouts), toppings (chopped green onion, orange and green tobiko, black and white sesame seeds) and sauces (eel, yum yum and spicy aioli) for the two sushi rolls we’d make, and there was a mat, makisu (bamboo rolling mat) and napkins at each place setting. Dom split a Pap Pap’s Salty Lager between the two travel wine tumblers we got at the 2025 Best of Nashville party (the class is BYOG too) as Chef Tim introduced himself.

We chose from six kinds of fish — cooked shrimp, eel, swordfish, Ōra King salmon from New Zealand, hamachi from Japan and bigeye tuna from Hawaii, all of which was picked up at the airport earlier that day — for the first roll (or futomaki), in which the nori was on the outside. And we did it all again for our inside-out roll (uramaki), with rice on the outside. Meanwhile, Chef Tim taught us about sushi rice, the best knife zone to use when cutting and many more tips and tricks I thought I’d remember but have since forgotten.

Despite the fact that I signed up for the sushi class and built my rolls step by step, I was still stunned to look down and see that I’d actually made sushi. Sushi that did not fall apart when I ate it. Sushi that tasted better and cleaner than the $20 rolls I’ve eaten all over town. Dom was just as proud of his little sushi babies and elbowed me to take pictures of them. This required a second trip to the napkin stack. Despite dipping my fingers into the water bowl we each received, I had rice everywhere. I was not alone: Toward the end of the class, I looked up when a woman at the far end of the table asked a question. There was a little clump of rice clinging to her hair.

Stop 3: AVO

I suppose some people would be full and ready to head home after making and eating two sushi rolls, but I am not one of those people. I craved something sweet to balance out the salt — and I wanted to download the experience with Dom before we went home and settled in for a long winter’s nap. Easy enough to walk across OneC1ty’s sand volleyball court to AVO, Nashville’s longtime plant-based vegan restaurant that originally occupied the shipping container where Aloha is now. 

Despite the layout of this particular Date Night, AVO is often my first and only stop, especially for a solo lunch at the bar, and always when I want something substantial with big flavors and zero meat. I’m a huge fan of the OG nachos with cauliflower-walnut chorizo and coconut cream. I’m an even bigger fan of the email/post that owner Annie Choo shared in October, a beautifully honest mission statement of sorts about the realities of the restaurant business — especially a vegan one. I think of it often.

Underneath the moss-covered chandelier, AVO’s communal table was set for a vegan-cupcake-decorating class, with bags of colored frosting for each guest. Dom and I scooted into the L-shaped nook directly to the left of the door, behind the painted concrete blocks, sipped a nonalcoholic spicy paloma and High Garden’s Daily Strength decaf tea and shared a chocolate avocado tart with walnut-date crust. The avocado adds such a rich, velvety element to the chocolate, making it somehow thick and light. And if it wasn’t in the name, you wouldn’t know it was there at all.