San Byaku salad with tuna
Unless you just emerged from a decade in cryonic suspension, you've likely noticed there's a bit of restaurant boom in Nashville these days. Rolf and Daughters has brought world-class pasta dishes. Butchertown Hall serves up great wood-fire-cooked brisket and sausages. Two Ten Jack serves up ramen and other Japanese pub specialties, and Otaku South will be bringing its ramen to the Gulch this fall. The brand-new Little Octopus is serving up a casual, healthy California-style vibe in East Nashville.
Among all of the gustatory fireworks, the arrival of Fenwick's 300 in November may have seemed a relatively pedestrian development. Though it lacks the defining railroad-car-style edifice, Fenwick's bills itself as a modern diner. (The name "Fenwick" refers to Kevin Bacon's character in the 1982 film Diner; the "300," a perfect bowling score, is a nod to Melrose Lanes, which formerly occupied a large part of the strip where the restaurant is located.)
The menu, featuring a variety of breakfast dishes, sandwiches, burgers, salads, milkshakes and coffee drinks, reflects that intention. In a citywide dining scene that now includes celebrity chefs, a faux ski lodge, wood-fired oysters, benne seeds and enough reclaimed barn wood to render half the nation's livestock homeless, a diner with burgers, eggs, BLTs and grilled-cheese sandwiches isn't the sort of thing that sets the food blogosphere on fire. But you could argue that a laid-back neighborhood diner is just the sort of thing Nashville needs. There are times when you don't feel like sous-vide skirt steak or a 63-degree egg, when you don't want to spend a lot, when you don't feel like wading through the throngs of Music City's young and fashionable to get to your table. Maybe you want a quick breakfast or lunch, something not available at a lot of new restaurants.
That's what Fenwick's proprietors Bob Bernstein and Derek Wolfe are banking on. Bernstein in particular is a wily veteran of the Nashville food scene, lording over an empire that also includes Bongo Java coffee shop, Bongo Java Roasting Company, Fido, Bongo East, Hot & Cold and Grins, a vegetarian eatery on the Vanderbilt campus. Some folks might think of him as a coffee guy, but it's worth noting that Fido in particular has developed a pretty solid reputation for its food. Wolfe began working in the kitchen at Bongo 15 years ago, and Bernstein says that Fenwick's is part of his new business model, creating partnerships to help longtime employees and others get the same opportunity to be a business owner that he had when he opened Bongo Java 22 years ago. He says he expects the two upcoming ventures he recently announced — one planned for Jefferson Street, the other for 10th Avenue South — to also be employee partnerships.
True to its diner aesthetic, Fenwick's features a generous supply of seating surrounding a horseshoe counter that dominates the room, but thankfully, Bernstein and Wolfe have forgone the kitschy retro vibe so many present-day diners seem to favor. The space features several tables and booths, clad with fresh blond woods and stylish modern lighting fixtures. (The presence of so much light-hued wood and sleek design led one of my companions to call the decor "diner by Ikea." Lest that assessment sound dismissive, bear in mind that it was provided by a man who had recently driven four hours to Cincinnati so he and his wife could shop at Ikea.)
I had not set foot into Fenwick's until June, in part because the early buzz I'd heard was not particularly good. But several months ago, Bernstein and Wolfe fired the opening chef and manager and brought on Rusty Johnston, a Grins veteran, to head the kitchen, and judging from three recent visits, Fenwick's is now living up to its stated mission: to provide "a place for family and friends to slow down and enjoy comfy, delicious food and organic coffee drinks."
We tried several breakfast offerings, which are served all day, and there were no disappointments. One of the early complaints I heard involved the hollandaise sauce on the eggs Benedict, but judging from our experience with the dish, Johnston has resolved the issue. The hollandaise was delightfully smooth and buttery, though we didn't notice much evidence of Cholula hot sauce mentioned in the description. The Kentucky country ham was great, the eggs perfectly poached.
The chilaquiles con huevo was also a hit — a massive plate of scrambled eggs, fried corn tortilla strips, Monterey Jack, salsa roja, queso fresco, poblano crema, pickled radish and avocado that my dining companion described as the perfect hangover cure. The accouterments combined to give the dish a bit of a mole-sauce flavor. If you're looking for bang for your buck, this is the ticket — two people could split the dish and likely be satiated.
I'd also heard less-than-flattering reports about the quinoa-cornmeal pancakes, but since they are also available as a side, I decided to order one, prompting a few raised eyebrows at my table. But we were all rather taken with the pancake's exceptionally light and fluffy texture — in fact, I preferred it to traditional pancakes, and I'd gladly order a plate of them for breakfast on a future visit. When I told the server I was surprised how much we liked them considering what I'd heard, he explained that the recipe had been tweaked considerably since the early days.
The lunch items, served after 11 a.m., were by and large satisfying. The BLT, dressed with a blue cheese aioli, was tasty, though I would have preferred a thinner alternative to thick-cut sourdough, which made the experience a little bready for my liking. The F300 Burger — topped with bacon, pimiento cheese, potato chips, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and special sauce — was quite good, if a tad messy. The Tikka Masala Burger was a refreshingly different veggie burger option, and was well-received by everyone at our table, though I found myself wishing for a little more spice. We agreed that the corned beef kimchi Reuben was as good as any Reuben we've had in town, the kimchi adding a welcome bite, though I still have yet to find great corned beef anywhere in Nashville. (I mean, it's not like seafood, where you have to be near a coast to get the fresh stuff, right? Can't someone figure out how to serve up genuine New York-style corned beef in this town?) The Reuben is also available with turkey pastrami.
A couple of side items deserve special mention. The home fries served with some of our breakfast and lunch items were among the best we've had in Nashville: bite-size hunks of golden-brown potatoes, cooked to delightfully crispy perfection on every occasion we had them. There was unanimous agreement that the jalapeño cheddar grits were divine. And if you have a sweet tooth at breakfast, definitely try the beignets, available in five varieties — we were particularly enamored with the Nutella and dulce de leche versions.
We enjoyed both specialty coffee drinks that we tried. The Dreamcicle featured muddled orange, lemon, condensed milk and espresso, and was a pretty accurate (and delicious) caffeinated facsimile of its frozen-dessert inspiration. We ordered the iced version of the "Hot Beets" — jalapeño, rosemary-infused beets, espresso and milk — more out of curiosity than longing, but we were pleasantly surprised. The beet flavor was subtle, and there was a gentle kick from the jalapeño.
There were a couple of minor missteps. The ahi tuna on my San Byaku (Japanese for "300") salad was overcooked, though the rest of the dish — mixed greens, avocado, cucumber, edamame, carrot, black sesame, crunchy rice noodles, wasabi peas and miso honey dressing — was very good. (All salads are available with add-ons of ahi tuna or grilled chicken, salmon, steak or hoisin tofu.) When we inquired about the strange color and texture hummus on our mezze plate — which also featured falafel, tabouli, feta, cucumber-mint yogurt, olives, lemon tahini and naan — we were told it was due to the addition of red pepper. But after we repeated our concern that something was amiss, the server realized we'd accidentally been served sriracha cream cheese instead of hummus. He apologized and brought us a plate of hummus, and all was well. Otherwise, the mezze plate was satisfying, particularly the falafel.
If you're looking for a good, reasonably priced meal featuring fresh ingredients, but without a lot of fuss or fanfare, Fenwick's 300 is a great option. Despite the early buzz not being great, it's clear Rusty Johnston has turned things around in the kitchen, and the restaurant is churning out consistently good food. Unlike some of Nashville's tonier recent additions, it's not necessarily a dining destination, but as far as a reliable neighborhood diner, Fenwick's hits all the right notes.
Fenwick's summer hours are 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. seven days a week. Dinner service will start again in September.
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