Nashville’s restaurant opening pace has accelerated significantly since 2022, with a concentration of serious culinary openings in East Nashville, The Gulch, and Wedgewood-Houston. The following reflects the most significant openings from 2024 into early 2025.
Bad Idea
East Nashville. Lao-inspired cuisine with a natural wine focus. Named to the New York Times Top 50 Restaurants in 2024, which is significant national recognition for a restaurant in a city that critics have historically treated as a barbecue and hot chicken destination. The menu is small, changes regularly, and draws from Laotian culinary traditions in a way that has no direct equivalent in Nashville. James Beard 2025 Best New Restaurant semifinalist. Late-night menu on select nights. This is the most important new restaurant in Nashville from a culinary perspective.
Kisser
East Nashville. Japanese comfort food from chef duo Leina Horii and Brian Lea. James Beard 2024 Best New Restaurant semifinalist and New York Times 50 Best Restaurants 2023. The restaurant quickly became the most discussed new opening in Nashville, with a focus on Japanese snacks, izakaya-style dining, and desserts that have generated independent press coverage. The husband-and-wife team is also debuting Babychan, a Japanese-influenced all-day bakery and cafe at Neuhoff in Germantown, in spring 2025.
Maiz de la Vida
606 8th Ave S, The Gulch. Chef Julio Hernandez, Colombian-born, using heirloom maize in preparations that include wagyu quesabirria and masa-based dishes. James Beard 2023 and 2025 semifinalist. Hernandez started the restaurant with pandemic stimulus funds. The food is serious and specific, not a general “Latin restaurant.”
Kase x Noko
707 Porter Rd, East Nashville. A 14-course rotating omakase experience operating out of the Noko kitchen. Limited seats, advance reservation required. For diners who want the most serious Japanese-inflected tasting experience in Nashville outside The Catbird Seat.
Sushi-san
12 South. Chicago import. Master Sushi Chef Kaze Chan leads the kitchen. Old-school hip-hop plays overhead. Walk-up soft serve is available at the counter. Opened 2025. The Chicago original has national recognition; the Nashville outpost brings that standard to a neighborhood that previously lacked a flagship sushi destination.
Sho Pizza Bar
Sean Brock’s Japanese pizza bar, East Nashville Riverside Village. A Tokyo-inspired concept from the chef who also operates Joyland and Husk. Pizza treated through a Japanese culinary lens, which sounds like a novelty but reflects Brock’s documented interest in Japanese fermentation and ingredient obsession.
Mama Yang
Germantown. Taiwanese bao and dumplings from a mother-daughter team. Opened 2025. The bao program has received early attention for quality. An addition to the Germantown dining scene, which already skews toward higher-end dining, that fills a specific gap.
Craig’s Nashville
The Gulch. Import from Los Angeles. Fine dining with Los Angeles-style service and presentation. The Nashville outpost brings the LA original’s aesthetic to a Gulch location that has the foot traffic to support its ambitions.
What These Openings Say About Nashville
The concentration of Japanese-influenced restaurants (Kisser, Kase x Noko, Sushi-san, Sho Pizza Bar) in Nashville’s 2024-2025 restaurant landscape reflects a broader national trend but also a local appetite that has developed rapidly. The Lao food at Bad Idea represents something different: a restaurant that is not filling an obvious gap but creating one, in the best sense. These openings collectively indicate that Nashville’s restaurant scene has moved beyond the “good for a Southern city” qualifier and is competing in a national conversation.
Sources
- Nashville Guru, new restaurant listings, nashvilleguru.com
- New York Times, Top 50 Restaurants 2024 (Bad Idea)
- Visit Nashville, “The Catbird Seat Reopens,” visitmusiccity.com
- James Beard Foundation, 2024 and 2025 semifinalist announcements, jamesbeard.org
- Strategic Hospitality, Babychan announcement, strategichospitality.com