When Anas Saba started taking his friends to different restaurants in South Nashville, he wasn’t planning to make a full-time job of it. He just wanted to share his hometown’s many delicious, multicultural restaurants.
Now, years later, his recommendations reach thousands of people through his @nashvillehiddengems Instagram account, where he posts about everything from small, immigrant-owned restaurants to well-known local staples. A self-described “celebrator” of food as opposed to a critic, Saba has been broadening people’s palates through posts, food tours, chef-led educational sessions and more. The Scene recently caught up with Saba to discuss his perspective on Nashville’s ever-changing food landscape.
How do you distinguish a “hidden gem” from other restaurants?
That username has been a blessing and a curse. … Being on my page doesn’t mean that I’m considering this place a Nashville hidden gem — it just might be a great place. … To me, a hidden gem is a place that’s just not in the regular media rotation. … Maybe they don’t have the savvy or the budget or they’re not necessarily thinking about marketing a lot, but they’re doing something really good, and something that I think is worth experiencing and worth sharing. So the places that I consider the certified hidden gems, they’re not super active on social media, and they kind of have that mom-and-pop, homey vibe.
Is it even fair to ask if you have a favorite restaurant in town?
My number one rec when people do ask me for a sitdown dinner — I do send people to Noko a lot. What I like about Noko is the service is always really great there. And I think, to me, that’s actually the most important thing when you are paying a higher price or you’re going to a higher-end restaurant. … And then there’s just too many to count when it comes to lunch.
Have you found any new hidden gems that you’re excited about?
TashTea [Cafe] in Antioch — really cool Turkish/Kurdish breakfast place. Lovely staff there. The food is amazing. We just don’t really have anything like that in Nashville right now, so I was really happy to see that they were doing that.
Is there a food culture that you’d like to see more widely represented in Nashville?
Chinese and West African.
Any hot takes about the local food scene?
I gotta be careful here. I think food in Nashville is a little bit expensive compared to cities that have a much higher cost of living than Nashville — but food prices are essentially the same. … I totally understand pricing. I have no problem paying a lot for good food, and I understand the way the margins work, and I understand that most of the time the prices aren’t inflated — it’s just the cost of things is so high. I think I would just like to see a few [or] some more reasonable options on every menu. …
I do wish we had more late-night options. … I feel like, in general, the quality of service is so down — especially at a higher-end restaurant. I mean, it’s really hard to find a place that can deliver a consistently good experience from the food and service perspective. I think there’s just a little, sometimes, too much focus on atmosphere and vibe, and then the service gets neglected and stuff. I feel like I see some places that will put so much into bringing new people in. It’s like, OK — getting people in the door is one thing. Once they’re in there, how are you training your staff, what kind of practices are you doing to make sure that people feel like they’re taken care of? At the end of the day, this is the hospitality industry, and people are going out to feel taken care of. And I’m just noticing it’s becoming harder and harder to find places that do deliver that level of service.
Anas Saba at Edessa
Is there a local market that you really like?
Newroz [Market], K&S [World Market] and Richland [Park] Farmers Market.
What advice would you give to people wanting to discover new restaurants and new kinds of food?
For me, it was hard for a while to go and try new spots. I mean, starting this page really encouraged me to. … But I would say for most people — I used to hear this all the time — people would be afraid of going to an international restaurant because they might be worried about language barriers, or they might not know what to order on the menu. I think that’s a really interesting experience, because that’s how most immigrants feel 99 percent of the time when they’re in America. It’s like, they may not have a high level of English, they may not be able to communicate, but they go out and they do what they gotta do anyway. And so I would say do a little bit of research before you go, see if you can find the menu, and just be open to trying new things and understanding that … so much can be communicated just through body language and expressions. And don’t let your fear or your anxiety about trying a spot for a first time keep you from finding your new favorite place.
A lot of those places, I mean, they rely on someone just taking that chance and trying them for the first time. They’re not investing a lot in marketing, they may not have a big web presence, so they rely on their neighbors just saying, ‘Hey, I’ve seen this Uzbek restaurant — I pass by it a hundred times,” “I see this taco truck all the time, let me just go give it a shot,” right? The beautiful thing about a lot of these mom-and-pop restaurants is you can give it a shot, and if you don’t like it, I mean, usually you’re not going to be breaking the bank entirely to try them for the first time.”
