11:18AM EDT November 2. 2012 - NASHVILLE — Onstage at the Grand Ole Opry, country icon Vince Gill — unpretentious in eyeglasses and casual zip-up jacket — strums his guitar. He greets well-wishers standing informally on one side of the stage as the USA's longest-running live radio show honors late comedian Minnie Pearl, famed for hayseed routines.
A short drive away at The Patterson House, a dimly lit speakeasy, sassy brunette Miranda Poore melds fruits, vegetables, herbs and house-made tinctures and syrups into thoroughly modern cocktails enjoyed by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow. She'll concoct custom creations based on patrons' personalities and palates.
Get past the so-yesterday stereotype of Nashville as Hickville. While Music City pays homage to tradition, it's humming with cutting-edge nightspots, restaurants and newly trendy neighborhoods that hit all the right notes with tourists.
Tennessee's capital (population about 600,000) boasts "world-class bars and top-end restaurants," says Patterson House regular John Shaver of Knoxville, who owns a software company and has just dined at the Watermark restaurant downtown — a Gill favorite. His appetizer: a $14 carpaccio with horseradish-caper crême fraîche.
Nashville "keeps getting better and better, but it's still got small-town charm," Gill says.
Thursday night's Country Music Awards put the spotlight on the city, as does ABC's new Nashville TV show. Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights) and Hayden Panettiere (Heroes) play dueling country stars. Shot on location, it showcases locales from The Loveless Cafe, a half-century-old eatery known for flaky secret-recipe biscuits and heaped platters of eggs and country ham, to cutting-edge bars such as The 5 Spot musicians' hangout in formerly ho-hum and now-Bohemian East Nashville.
New, old and nice
It's hard to have a bad time . From the moment you arrive, unless you're a real grump, expect to be greeted with "How you doin'?" and smiles and to be "yes-ma'amed" and "yes-sirred." Nashville's Convention Visitors Bureau gives "Hitmaker" awards to hospitality workers recommended via its visitmusiccity.com site.
"People are nice, and that makes the experience here nice for folks," Oklahoma-born Gill says. So nice that Sheryl Crow, Ke$ha, Kelly Clarkson and Peter Frampton — who could live anywhere — have homes here.
"There is a warmth and quality of life" hard to match, says Nashville co-executive producer Steve Buchanan, also Grand Ole Opry Group president.
Stand in line at The Pancake Pantry in the Hillsboro Village shopping district, and if you're solo, a regular might agree to share a table. In this reporter's case, it was a Vanderbilt University grad-turned-long-distance truck driver who praised the city's laidback charm while forking up potato flapjacks.
If your plane lands at Concourse C, you may be greeted by aspiring stars singing Merle Haggard or Carrie Underwood hits at the airport outpost of Tootsie's Orchid Lounge. The landmark downtown honky-tonk invites patrons — who've included country legends such as Willie Nelson — to "have a holler and a swaller." Today, Tootsie's is known for boisterous tourist antics of the Margaritaville sort — and yes, there is a Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville bar/restaurant down the street.
Downtown also is home to The Southern Steak Oyster, a bistro in a burgeoning district dubbed SoBro ("South of Broadway"). Just named one of the "Best New Restaurants of 2012" by Esquire magazine, it offers a contemporary take on classics served below the Mason-Dixon Line. The fried chicken and waffles with maple syrup come with a sprig of rosemary, and one gooey dessert pays homage to the Nashville-made milk chocolate-caramel-peanut-marshmallow Goo Goo Cluster. The $9 "Meat 'N 3" tips a hat to the Southern restaurant tradition of meat specials with three sides.
Owner Tom Morales, in a baseball cap, slides into a booth and says he's also in a partnership that took over The Loveless Cafe and made needed repairs. Nashville welcomes the new, "but we hold onto treasures here," he says.
Music is a common theme
It's easy to spend a visit eating till your jeans seams burst by neighborhood-hopping.
The Southern eatery sits in the shadow of skyscrapers, vintage office buildings and glass-and-steel condos. It's steps from the symphony, a new megaconvention center due next year, the soon-to-open Johnny Cash Museum and the must-see Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which is expanding. The Ryman Auditorium, original home of the Opry and where it plays part of the year, offers tours.
The Pantry and venerable Elliston Place Soda Shop are not far from the mansions and tree-lined boulevards of Belle Meade, the elegant West Nashville neighborhood where Britton's TV father lives and where Al Gore bought a white-columned home. If you're in the area and have a fat wallet, snag a seat at the horsehoe-shaped counter of The Catbird Seat Restaurant to interact with chefs cooking delicacies. A seven-course tasting menu costs $100 a person (drinks not included).
In The West End, the lodging of the moment is the Hutton boutique hotel; the city's swankiest is the five-star The Hermitage Hotel by the Capitol.
Lovers of the offbeat head to East Nashville, where eateries and coffehouses (the new Barista Parlor in a former transmission repair garage is hot) are tucked into neighborhoods lined with modest bungalows with porch swings. Margot Café Bar serves French/Italian fare; Mas Tacos Por Favor, an offshoot of a food truck, sells $3 tacos and Mexican Coca-Cola made the old way, with sugar, not high-fructose corn syrup.
The Pharmacy Burger Parlor Beer Garden is known for hamburgers, old-fashioned soda-water-and-syrup "phosphates" (maraschino cherry is a big seller) and homemade sausage. The next-door Holland House Bar Refuge is another hip hangout, with white chandeliers, cushy sofas and personable bartender Jeremiah Blake working with the tinctures.
At night, all around town, music is on the menu.
Top talent appears at The Bluebird Cafe, an intimate venue famed for performances by Nashville songwriters. (Nashville uses a replica that includes every 8 x 10 star glossy on the walls.)
Don't miss the grand Opry House near the airport, redone for $20 million after May 2010 flooding. A-listers Taylor Swift and Keith Urban share the stage with veteran stars. You can tour the photo-lined, themed dressing rooms backstage.
The Lower Broadway area lures tourists with music spilling out of many doors till the wee hours. Country predominates, but jazz, blues and rock play, too.
When a night of honky-tonking ends, you'll have a grin on your face and know the words to It's Five O'Clock Somewhere. And likely, you'll be contemplating a return trip.
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If you go ...
Where to stay: Budget chains have rooms for less than $50. Spend $259 or more nightly at The Hermitage Hotel (thehermitagehotel.com), Tennessee's only Forbes five-star and AAA five-diamond lodging. The Hutton Hotel (huttonhotel.com, starting around $200) attracts hipsters; The Hotel Indigo (ichotelsgroup.com/hotelindigo, from about $160) lets visitors party downtown without driving.
Where to eat:Margot Café Bar (margotcafe.com), ever-changing entrees in the $15-$25 range; The Loveless Cafe (lovelesscafe.com), entrees $9.95-$16.95; The Pharmacy Burger Parlor Beer Garden (thepharmacynashville.com), entrees $7.50-$13; The Southern Steak Oyster Company (thesouthernnashville.com), entrees $14-$49; Watermark Restaurant (watermark-restaurant.com), entrees $27-$50.
What to see:The Grand Ole Opry (tickets and tours at opry.com); The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (countrymusichalloffame.org); The Frist Center for the Visual Arts (fristcenter.org); Ryman Auditorium (ryman.com); The Bluebird Cafe (bluebirdcafe.com)
Information:Visitmusiccity.com
Source: http://www.news.theusalinks.com/2012/11/02/nashville-strikes-new-chords-for-visitors/
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