At times, there's a fine line between a new restaurant that is "on point" and another one that is a little bit "too on the nose," and it can be difficult to distinguish when that line has been crossed. Nashville diners are a lot more savvy than we used to be, and we can generally detect a restaurant that is a little too precious from a mile away. (Where we had to park.)
But I've personally discovered that my preconceived notions or first impressions can be clouded by failing to take a restaurant's intentions into context. An example was earlier this year when I first checked out Bakersfield, the downtown taco emporium in the ground floor of the Encore building. During my first visit, I snarkily wrote in my notebook that it checked all the boxes of a new Nashville (and New Nashville) eatery:
Roll-up garage doors? Check. Corrugated steel and reclaimed barnwood wall coverings? Roger that. Edison bulb light fixtures? Yep. (Don't these places know that those bulbs make interior photography next to impossible?) A large music-themed mural covering a wall? Gotta have one of those. PBR served in cowboy boot glass mugs? Quelle horreur! Long wooden communal tables? The better to share those tacos over.
(This has raised an interesting editorial dilemma. Do I have to use quotes when I'm quoting myself? But I digress.)
Knowing that Bakersfield was a chain based in Ohio, I assumed they wouldn't know much about Mexican street tacos and that the decor was probably a Yankee restaurateur's idea of what a Southern roadhouse should look like. But damned if I didn't really like their food, especially at prices that were pretty reasonable considering the expensive real estate they occupied. Bakersfield quickly became a regular part of my pre-Preds game eating and drinking rotation, and fills that role quite nicely.
So when I made my first visit to the new Tupelo Honey Cafe at 2000 Meridian Blvd. near Cool Springs, my antennae were tingling. Walking in the front door, I was confronted by a dining environment that was hyper-barny, screaming farm-to-table at the top of its thoughtfully sourced lungs. The predominant building material was indeed barnwood, and the primitive-style art covering the walls looked like the remnants of Howard Finster's storage locker.
The menu called out the source of just about every ingredient of the selections of elevated Southern cuisine, featuring purveyors with down-home names like Hickory Nut Gap Farm and Goodnight Brothers NC Country Ham. Signature dishes included ubiquitous options like fried green tomatoes, shrimp-and-grits, fried chicken and beef-and-bacon meatloaf. A shallow reading of the menu would lead to the conclusion that this was just another inferior Husk knock-off, and as the 12th Tupelo Honey location, it was (gasp!) a chain restaurant.
But just wait a minute, Chamberlain, you jaded gourmand. (And I know that particular term implies gluttony. I own it.) My own questions were asked and answered after a little bit of reflection. The chain issue was a non-starter for me, since I have eaten at Brian Sonoskus' original Tupelo Honey in Asheville, N.C., where he was a very early adopter of "upscale Southern food" and the importance of using and identifying local and regional ingredients whenever possible. I found his food to be innovative and delicious at the time, and Tupelo Honey seems to have mastered the concept of iterating their food philosophies at multiple locations.
When people play the anti-chain card with me, I point out that Pat Martin has opened several outposts of Martin's Bar-B-Que Joint, so am I not supposed to like it anymore? I'll fight a man that tries to pry my fingers off of a Martin's rib just because they are enjoying successful expansion efforts. You know why Martin can repeat his formula in new locations? Because he started out with an absolute commitment to quality; he developed, streamlined and documented his procedures so that they could be repeatable; and he constantly checks to make sure that his employees don't stray from his vision. Also, Pat Martin's entire heart was poured into making great barbecue from the very beginning, and it still is.
I feel like Tupelo Honey is on that same track. The menu extends beyond the expected Southern specialties to include excellent vegetable dishes like salt-roasted beets and crunchy goat cheese grits poppers with apple salsa. International flavors show up in dishes such as their signature curry fried chicken thighs and yellowfin tuna with edamame.
That primitive art I wanted to lift my nose at? It was all commissioned from local artists, some of whom I was fortunate enough to meet at a recent meal. Apparently, the management of the restaurant was extremely open to artists' suggestions and flexible about size and scale of their projects to fill the spaces allotted. All in all, it's a nice touch.
And I could love Tupelo Honey just for their beverage program. In addition to some creative cocktails that are priced at the low end of the local craft cocktail scale and also feature local ingredients as part of their recipes, the beer assortment at the comfortable bar is remarkable. Forty taps feature a variety of high- and low-end beers plus draft cocktails. At least half of the taps are reserved for local brews or beers sourced from within a hundred miles of each Tupelo Honey location. A sign that this strategy is being accepted is the fact that over the first month of operation, their lowest selling beers have been Bud Light and PBR. Good for you, Franklin!
This is not to even mention (yet) the incredible happy hour deals at Tupelo Honey. They call it their "Blues and Brews Happy Hour," and indeed the soundtrack of the restaurant skews toward old school R&B and blues. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) During the multi-hour happy hour (the restaurant's hours are still in flux during the opening period), all bottles of wine are half off, draft and frozen cocktails are $5, and all the beers on tap are $3 per pint. Think about that one; Tupelo Honey is selling pints of local craft beers at prices much lower than the breweries do in their own tap rooms. As much as I respect our local brewers, that's a loss leader I can at least occasionally get behind.
To keep you sated during happy hour, the restaurant also features $6 small plates, including the aforementioned fried green tomatoes plus pecan-encrusted goat cheese, fried okra, pimento cheese with tortilla chips, and what they call a Country Fair Avocado, a deep-fried morsel with fresh tomato salsa, cilantro and whipped sour cream. Yeah, I believe that I could hang out there for awhile.
If Tupleo Honey had opened this location up in the middle of downtown Nashville, I believe it would have suffered from some derision in comparison to other similar options like Husk and The Farm House that both serve more refined versions of farm-to-table fare. But Cool Springs doesn't have an overabundance of options like this for people seeking out this sort of food, so it could turn out to be a very smart and successful development for the area. As long as they stay true to their vision and keep the execution level high, I think Tupelo Honey will do just fine. If you get there before I can fight my way down I-65 again for another visit, let us know what you think in the comments.
Tupelo Honey Cafe
2000 Meridian Blvd.
Suite 110
Franklin, TN 37067
615-224-2600
