Yes, and Nashville has an excellent plain fried chicken tradition that exists alongside and independent of hot chicken. The city’s soul food restaurants and meat-and-three establishments have been frying unseasoned chicken for as long as they have been frying the spicy kind.
At Hot Chicken Restaurants
Hattie B’s offers a Southern level, which is their zero-heat option. It is plain southern fried chicken, well-prepared, crispy, and served with the same excellent sides available for the hot levels. If you are accompanying someone who wants hot chicken and you cannot eat spice, this is your path. Ordering the Southern level at Hattie B’s gives you a well-made piece of fried chicken in a restaurant context that otherwise serves the whole table.
Some hot chicken spots also list a “mild” level that many visitors mistake for true heat. At Hattie B’s, Mild does have cayenne. If you want absolutely no heat, you must specify Southern.
At Nashville’s Actual Fried Chicken Restaurants
The city’s meat-and-three tradition runs deep and produces excellent non-spicy fried chicken. Several key options:
Monell’s Dining and Catering serves family-style Southern meals, with fried chicken that arrives on platters passed around communal tables. It is crispy, well-seasoned with salt and pepper but not capsaicin, and representative of the traditional Sunday dinner fried chicken that Southern families made for generations. Dinner at Monell’s involves rotating dishes from the kitchen and is an experience distinct from a typical restaurant meal.
Loveless Cafe on Highway 100 near the Natchez Trace serves classic Southern fried chicken alongside their famous biscuits. It is not a hot chicken restaurant, and the fried chicken has no cayenne component. The biscuits, served with house-made preserves, are the actual reason most locals make the trip, but the chicken is legitimate.
Arnold’s Country Kitchen is one of the most praised meat-and-three restaurants in Nashville. The fried chicken rotates and when it is available it is considered among the best in the city by longtime Nashville food writers. No heat involved.
Puckett’s Grocery and Restaurant, with multiple Nashville locations, serves traditional Southern fried chicken as part of a broader comfort food menu. Accessible, reliably prepared, not spicy.
Why the Question Comes Up
The dominance of hot chicken in Nashville’s food marketing creates an impression that the city’s chicken offering is predominantly spicy. That impression is wrong. Nashville has a much older and deeper fried chicken tradition than the hot chicken variety, and that tradition is as alive at meat-and-three counters as hot chicken is at its dedicated restaurants. The two exist in parallel, serving different purposes and different moments. Hot chicken is the performance. Traditional fried chicken is the everyday food that the same community has eaten for longer.
Sources
- Hattie B’s Hot Chicken, FAQ and heat level descriptions, https://www.hattieb.com/faq
- Nashville Luxury Stay, “13 Places to Find the Best Fried Chicken in Nashville,” https://nashvilleluxurystay.com/the-best-fried-chicken-in-nashville/
- Cozymeal, “Best Hot Chicken in Nashville for 2025,” https://www.cozymeal.com/magazine/best-hot-chicken-in-nashville