While the major draw at the Music City Food + Wine Festival earlier this month was the appearance of national celebrities and chefs such as Rick Bayless, Carla Hall, Tyler Florence, Martina McBride and Kathie Lee Gifford, there was plenty of local talent on display for the thousands of patrons who visited the tasting tents and special events throughout the weekend. The Nashville Scene shared some of their favorite bites from the tents, all of which came from Music City chefs.
Among their favorites was a shrimp & grits offering from Holler & Dash, a tasty little noodle stir fry from the recently-opened new location of Thai Esane, and a sweet potato “poke” from Sunda. The award for “prettiest dish” was a compressed watermelon tasting portion from Deb Paquette and Jess Lambert from Etch and etc. The colorful plate was topped with tofu sesame, honey whip, pickled melon rinds, micro shiso greens and finger lime pearls, and a dash of togarashi dried shrimp to add a little umami.
Other Nashville chefs that shined under the tents included Carey Bringle of Peg Leg Porker, Alyssa Gangeri from Urban Grub, Sea Salt’s Mike Haggerty, Bobby Hodge from Oak Steakhouse, Shane Nasby of HoneyFire BBQ, Liberty Common’s Jeffrey Chambless Rhodes, Murphy Vaughn and Chris Bowater from the kitchen at SILO, John Stephenson and Joey Molteni from Hathorne, Henley’s Daniel Gorman, Nick Pellegrino, the chef/owner of Mangia Nashville and many other local favorites.
It was great to see native Nashville chefs showing off their chops amongst all the national talent, and hopefully that is a trend that will continue at next year’s Music City Food + Wine.
