Caffe Nonna

We always look forward to dinner at this tiny gem of a restaurant on Murphy Road. The scents from the kitchen greet you as you enter the dining room: olive oil, tomato sauces, warm bread, pizza. All the diners are elbow to elbow—like Grandma’s house on Thanksgiving Day—close enough to talk and to share food, too.

Four other guests have already filled the quaint bar for the pre-dinner ritual of a glass of wine, so we happily go ahead to our table for wine and face-to-face conversation, bread and a shining bowl of herbed olive oil brought to us by one of our favorite servers. Although it is true that they are all our favorites: they are welcoming, they remember us and they all have the important gifts of conversation and good humor.

Ann and Sallie begin with salads. Ann chooses the classic Caesar, rich with garlic and cheese, cold and crisp. Sallie starts with a composed salad of good greens dressed in a spicy mustard and balsamic vinegar dressing—dressed with a light touch that lets the wholesomeness of the greens shine through.

Hamilton orders a Margherita pizza. Nonna’s version manages to be a meal without that heaviness that often is true of pizza. A crisp crust topped with good cheese, the right herbs and your choice of toppings. Hamilton adds mushrooms to the classic and all of us who share his table are happy he did. The pizza is large enough to share; he does exactly that.

Grey’s choice of Bolognese marinara over rigatoni is another classic dish and a dish that one of us almost always orders. Slow-simmered, beefy sauce, al dente pasta, just the right touch with herbs and aromatics.

Ann chooses Arrabiata sauce for her rigatoni. This spicy marinara combines sweet heat with tomatoes and gentler herbs for a memorable sauce that is healthy and light. Sallie chooses the Basilica sauce over penne. This sauce is mother and home for anyone who ever had Sunday gravy at an Italian home: onion, basil, wine, tomatoes and olive oil. Pure comfort in a single dish.

This simple, yet perfect, Italian meal is complete when we order dessert: chocolate gelato. Gleaming scoops of the best homemade frozen heaven, so fully chocolate that even the die-hard dark chocolate lovers among us approve.

If you are lucky enough to have an Italian mother or grandmother, we are envious. The rest of us have adopted Caffe Nonna as our own personal Italian grandmother’s kitchen.

Dinner for four at Caffe Nonna exclusive of wine, tip and tax: $59.00

FourTop Rating (1-4)
Ann: 4
Sallie: 4
Hamilton: 4 (a 4!)
Grey: 4

FourTop clip
Caffe Nonna
4427 Murphy Road
Nashville, TN 37209-4749
(615) 463-0133
www.cafenonna.com/

Germantown Cafe

On any given night Germantown Café has the best views of any restaurant in town. And the light in the dining room is balanced to both compliment the diner and help the windows frame views of downtown and the Capitol. And you just have to smile when you see those cheerful Gerbera daisies on each table.

Grey begins with French onion soup, and the Café’s version gives French onion soup a good name—beefy broth, deeply-caramelized onions, crisp Parmesan crouton and it overflows with Swiss cheese. Thank you France, Italy and Switzerland: it is a terrific soup. And thank you Grey for sharing with the others at the table. If you are looking for a Nashville Best, choose this soup. Order it with a salad and you have a meal.

Ann and Sallie begin with house salad: reliable standards. No fireworks, simply crisp, cold, well-dressed. Salad as prelude doesn’t have to set the plates spinning.

When we see a dish that includes pork and potatoes on a menu, it just catches our eye. Seizing the opportunity, Ann chooses the pork with plum sauce and mashed potatoes. The dish is a hit: the sauce is savory and sweet and adds just the right note to the medallions of pork tenderloin. The potatoes are a purist’s delight: seasoned well, not-mucked-about with. Potatoes—just potatoes, ma’am. And accompanied by crisp green beans.

Sallie orders the rack of lamb special. Toothsome chops cooked to the correct temperature, but a little short on basic salt and pepper. Again, those terrific, simple potatoes and the good green beans.

Hamilton orders one of the specials, pasta in a light tomato sauce with grilled salmon. The pasta is a hit, but only the pasta. After specifically asking the server about the size of the salmon portion to come and being assured that it was thick cut, he is delivered a nice plate of pasta topped with a very thin slice of salmon—the resemblance to a floppy disc is astonishing and uncanny. Luckily, Hamilton had two things in his favor: he is a gentleman and had begun the evening with a very dry martini. Thus he is able to finish the meal with his customary good humor.

Grey has a penchant for anything curry: Thai curry, West Indian curry, Guyanese curry. His eyes light up as soon as he spots the coconut curry salmon on this menu. The salmon is well-prepared and flavorful, though the coconut curry sauce lacks seasoning as does the risotto.

A couple of glasses of port and one shared serving of hot apple pie with cinnamon ice cream later, we are all generally satisfied despite the missteps on Grey and Hamilton’s dishes.

As we expect of any good restaurant that pays attention, Hamilton’s dish and the dessert were comped by way of an apology. There is no better way to insure customer loyalty than paying attention to a complaint.

Dinner for four exclusive of wine, port, tax and tip: $100.00

FourTop Rating (1-4)
Ann - 3.75
Sallie - 3.7
Hamilton – high 2, low 3
Grey - 3

FourTop Clip
Germantown Cafe
1200 Fifth Avenue, North
Nashville, TN 37208
Phone: 615.242.3226
Fax: 615.242.3112
www.germantowncafe.com

mAmbu

Tonight we are looking for a cozy place to be on a cold night. mAmbu is a long-time favorite of our group. And it is the right choice again.

This big old house with its fun, funky décor welcomes you back from the minute you walk in the door. And then, of course, there is Anita, who welcomes you like a long lost friend.

The bar is always the place for a little people watching: twenty-somethings texting, thirty-somethings unwinding, forty-somethings celebrating, fifty-somethings happy to be on the program. All of us glad to be in out of the cold.

A few moments in the bar (with a martini served in the correct-sized glass—a discussion for another time) and it is on to a table in one of the high-ceilinged front rooms, and to a menu that offers something for every taste.

Ann and I start with the well-composed house salad: greens, cucumber, beets complemented by a housemade black pepper cracker. We order dressings on the side—hers Green Goddess (what a wonderful throwback that is) and lime cilantro vinaigrette, respectively. Grey starts with the calamari with tomato coulis. It’s our favorite calamari in town: crisp, well-seasoned breading covering tender seafood. Hamilton begins with a spicy, flavorful lobster roll. Both calamari and lobster roll appetizers are large enough to encourage sharing. In fact, either appetizer would be perfect for a small, shared dinner if accompanied by a salad per person.

Hamilton and Grey order the pasta special: shrimp and mahi mahi in a cream sauce —man-sized portions. Ann orders what to us is a mAmbu staple: delicious sesame-crusted tuna served with jasmine rice and bok choy in Thai basil ginger sauce. Sallie orders the fish special: pan-seared sea bass with seasoned jasmine rice and a substitution of steamed bok choy for tempura battered. Great dish: well-flavored, an ideal-sized serving.

mAmbu is really paying attention to diners’ budgets. They offer a full-range of desserts AND a delightful new choice: a few truffles with chocolate and caramel for that little touch of sweet to follow a meal. All the pleasure of dessert with only a morsel of the guilt at a miniscule price. We always leave mAmbu in good spirits.

Anita runs the front of house like she's inviting you into her home. And, if our mothers had cooked like Corey, we never would have left home.

Dinner for four excluding wine, two glasses of port, tax and tip: $132

FourTop Rating (1-4)
Ann: 4
Sallie: 4
Hamilton: 3.876955432
Gray: 4

FourTop Clip
mAmbu
1806 Hayes Street
Nashville, Tennessee 37203
615.329.1293
www.eatdrinkmambu.com

Miel

Hamilton chose the restaurant for our date this week. Since we were away when Miel opened last fall, I confess I did not realize a new restaurant had opened on the edge of Sylvan Park. With the economy in such dire shape, it took an act of faith on the part of owners Sheema and Jimmy Phillips, front of house and chef, respectively, to renovate an old market and launch a lovely, fine dining restaurant.

If the crowd on Friday night is any indication of success, then their brave statement is being rewarded.

Despite the lack of cocktails to start our evening ( perhaps a liquor license is to come ), we four plunge right into an evening of talk and laughter. The room gets a bit noisy as the evening progresses and our table is not the best one in the house, but after a bottle of wine is opened and a good meal begun, little notice is taken.

The amuse bouche, a butternut squash wonder hints at the fine things to come, and is followed by a basket of warm baseball-sized dinner rolls. The rolls have a perfect brown, crusty exterior and a fragrant, fine-textured interior.

Grey starts with French onion soup made with a rich mushroom broth and well-caramelized onions. The flavors of onion, mushrooms and herbs are well-married. Hamilton begins with a sumptuous appetizer of classically-prepared escargot and frog legs in a tempura batter.

Ann and I have duplicate meals (when will we learn?) starting with a Bibb lettuce salad of greens that is under-dressed and under-seasoned accompanied by overly-crisp croutons. [ A note: Sallie often has salad as a pre-meal mea culpa for what is to come. She says that if she eats her greens then she can have something richer later on. Virtue on a salad plate. So a slightly disappointing salad is not a huge loss to her. ]

All is forgiven since Ann and Sallie are more than happy with what follows: apple-crusted salmon over a bed of cider-braised cabbage and port demi-glace. The salmon is perfectly cooked and the combination of cider, apple and cabbage make the dish hearty enough for a cold evening without being heavy. Though there is an odd garnish of roe on the salmon. The heavy brininess is unnecessary on an otherwise thoughtfully prepared dish.

Hamilton's bouillabaisse is a saffron-hued stew of seafood, sausage and tomato—it practically begs for more bread to dip, wasting any of the stew would have been a shame—the perfect-sized portion, perfect flavors.

Grey's duck breast confit is expertly seared, moist and ruby-fleshed, served with a classic cherry pan sauce and fall vegetables. Only one slight misstep: a garnet-hued foam as garnish. Molecular gastronomy is not as fun as it used to be.

Miel has an interesting wine list which is well-edited and can please any budget.

Service is attentive without hovering. House-filtered water is served without the song and dance about bottled water vs. sparkling water. The staff is welcoming, the room is lovely, though our table is a bit too close to the front door and not sheltered from the draft. Next time we plan to request a table at the back of the room or the cozy table nearest the kitchen. It looks perfect for conversation and is well-shielded from from draft. And there will be a next time.

A lovely gesture is made at the end of the meal: a tiny spoon with a morsel of honey (miel) and a sprinkling of fennel seed. A fitting end to the experience.

Dinner for four (exclusive of tax, tip and wine): $135.00
There is a $20.00 corkage fee for those who bring their own wine, however it is waived if you purchase a bottle from their wine list as well. That is civilized.

FourTop Rating (1-4)
Ann: 4
Sallie: 3.5
Hamilton: 3.75689
Grey: 4

FourTop clip
Miel Restaurant
343 53rd Avenue North
[off Charlotte, behind the summertime favorite, Bobby’s Dairy Dip]
Nashville, Tennessee 37209
615.298.3663
www.mielrestaurant.com