First We Eat: Nashville FINALLY Becomes a Sandwich Town!
We did it you guys!
Here is my triumphant return to FIRST WE EAT! I’m sticking in Nashville this time, for all subscribers (paid and unpaid), and next week this column will go back to being for you loyal, deeply loyal, paid subscribers. I will step out on Nashville and tell you all of my New Orleans haunts, tricks and loyalties.
To reiterate the purpose and criteria for First We Eat - and for all lists moving forward:
Honest food.
Informed and thoughtful, not over the top, service. It’s a dying art.
Flavor, flavor, flavor.
Good ambience. This can mean a cozy bar stool in a trailer with a great bartender and a good mezcal selection or it can mean a hallowed, beautifully decked out hall of beautifully curated paintings and dried flowers hanging from the ceiling.
The urge to return and tell everyone about it as fast as you can.
And so, join me today as we celebrate what has been a VERY lost art in Nashville for the entire twenty plus years I have lived here until very recently: THE BEAUTIFUL beautiful magnificent be-still-my-heart SANDWICH.
Boy, do I love a sandwich. Let’s get to it!
One of the common denominators of the each of these places is the foundation of any good sandwich: Bread. Two of these places have mastered the art of baking their own sandwich bread.This is so notable for several reasons. First one, is because it really, really matters what kind of bread you use to build a sandwich. This might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many good potential sandwiches have gone so, so bad because Nashville is not really a “bread town”. We are so good at a lot of things. Bread isn’t really one of them. Big nod to Dozen Bakery, naturally. But the few old school bread bakeries we have in town, while mostly consistent, just aren’t really making bread to write home about (or build a remarkable sandwich upon, as the argument for today bids).
As a baker, the fact that these breads are being made in my neighborhood for the sole purpose of building sandwiches gets me super hot and bothered. It thrills me to think what kind of expectations this establishes in our dining experiences and it is worth devoting a whole paragraph in this essay to say: THANK YOU for caring so much about our experience that you took the mighty responsibility of honoring the sandwich SO much, that you were a devotee to bread.
Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.
So let’s begin. Sandwich shop number one on our list is home to the sandwiches I have to pretend are not a mere 1.5 miles from my house because my menopausal ass is already struggling to stay at a healthy weight. If I could, I would eat them twice a day. They are so good that if I mistakenly take them to go, I don’t even make it out of the parking lot before I house an entire half.
1. Fatbelly Pretzel and Deli
Welcome to the neighborhood Levon and Kim Wallace! Don’t ever leave. Don’t ever change. Stay with me, er, us, forever.
Fatbelly Pretzel started popping up during the pandemic, like most of the good business I adore in Nashville currently (shout out to Julio at Maiz de la Vida for his James Beard nod, btw).
Levon came to us by way of Donald Link and the now shuttered Nashville outpost of Cochon Butcher. I was running a slightly slipshod (I was borrowing a catering kitchen! It was rogue times!) freelance bakery kind of thing. I think the kids call them “micro-bakeries” these days. And I provided way overpriced pies and cookies because my infrastructure was not good y’all. Like, it makes sense to pay “micro-bakeries” a lot these days, but let me tell you, this baker was STRUGGLING to make any of it work back in the day. ANYWAY. This is how I met Levon, a man I came to respect immensely over the years. His work ethic, commitment to the food (literally just to the food and his family - such a rarity amongst chefs these days) has been something I have always admired. We did not get to see his full form at Cochon. He was running Donald Link’s show and mostly serving his food, and, while I can’t speak to the arrangement, I do feel certain, based on what I know now, Levon was cooking with one hand tied behind his back at the endeavor.
Not at Fatbelly. At Fatbelly, he takes great care with every layer and every foundation. He helms a kitchen that produces top-notch baked goods like his stuffed pretzels, his NYC quality babkas, his ridiculous breakfast sandwiches (which wait for you to grab and go every morning they are open) and, last week, I spied a breakfast burrito and - lord help me.
But this is about SANDWICHES.
The first sandwich I ever had at Fatbelly was a vegetarian deal. I saw a sandwich listed on their instagram page (which you should follow if you are not already - they post specials very regularly there) called the Bracco. It is listed on the IG photo in this way: “LORRAINE BROCCO IS A VERY NICE SANDWICH WITH ROASTED BROCCOLI, HOUSE MADE MOZZARELLA, SWEET AND HOT PEPPERS, ARUGULA, BASIL PESTO AND BANANA PEP MAYO ON DUTCH CRUNCH HASHTAG VEGETARIAN.”
I arrived a day late, missed the Bracco and was sad. Kim, Levon’s beloved wife who runs the counter (and I’m certain many, many other parts of this business - they are an inspiring and inspired team), turned around to Levon and said, “can you whip up another vegetarian?” and Levon said, “totally but with eggplant”.
Christ on a cracker. Eggplant is my favorite.
Anyway. I snarfed this sandwich in the parking lot like a woman who had never had a proper sandwich before. I won’t tell you I cried. But I groaned a lot. A lot.
I’m currently working my way through the menu. The Spicy Bomba doesn’t miss a beat either. I am saving myself for the Muffuletta because, honestly, I am scared. I won’t be able to keep myself away from a properly made muffuletta and I know, with all of my heart, that Levon does not fail.
The sandwiches are built to perfection. It matters how you layer a sandwich and no detail, bite, combination or delicate consideration of flavor in each bite is left unconsidered. Truly. There is crunch where there should be crunch. There is spice where there should be spice. There is creamy where there should be creamy. It all works like a - I’m gonna say it! - a goddamned symphony. Take this and add beautifully baked and paired bread that was built just for this very endeavor and you realize you are eating a sandwich of a lifetime. I am seriously and simply floored by these sandwiches.
Fatbelly Pretzel and Deli is located at 921 Gallatin Ave, Nashville, TN 37206 and they are open Tuesday - Saturday from 8am - 3pm. They have dine-in seating and are quick enough that you can order at the counter and take-away a sandwich in no time. They also have a cooler full of wonderful looking take-home meals and soups and, if I were still feeding a house full of people, I would totally get in there as often as I could.
You can find them, their menu and other important details online HERE.
2. East Side Bánh Mì
God bless a french style hoagie à la Vietnam. It is a piece of art in and of itself. Developing a good one, one that has a sharp crisp on a delicate crust, so delicate it’s not a crust at all but a shell around the tenderest and most well balanced textured crumb structure - a flavorful demi-baguette you can simultaneously hold with your hands, bite into eagerly with your mouth and teeth and not feel compromised or destroyed by it’s rustique nature (it will be so kind to the roof of your mouth) and be sturdy enough to hold the weight of pâtè and roasted pork or, in my case at East Side Bánh Mì, braised tofu and marinated eggplant. To master this bread likely seems a simple trick to anyone who doesn’t bake bread for a living. It takes a lot of know how and finesse and consideration. It also takes a great deal of practice. It will separate an exceptionally good bánh mì from a “just fine” bánh mì every single time. The fact that Grace Nguyen and her team took enough pride and patience to make sure their bread was right is all you need to know about the quality of every single thing they do. For this town, it’s quite a revolution.
There are some weeks, much like Fatbelly, where I have to pretend East Side Bánh Mì and ESPho do not exist. I’ve lived in East Nashville for 18 years of my 21 years here (damn, that sentence just properly aged me) and I travel a lot for my work. When I am home, I am not really all that interested in going anywhere. I have cats that I miss a lot and a lot of work to do from my kitchen and dining room table and laptop. Because I’m a recipe developer and food writer, I have a lot of food usually around the house. But, I promise you, when you’ve tested a cake recipe five times with alterations, you can’t (nor should you) eat that cake beyond a small nibble. Anyway. Point is. I crave bánh mì and pho and try not to order from one of Grace’s places every single day. I imagine them seeing my name pop up on their screen or on their ticket board and think, “jeez, Lisa D. again, that girl is HUNGRY”. But I also like to imagine that they have somehow figured out that I like extra fresh jalapeño (they absolutely do not know this and have no reason to) and always add a few extra (though, somehow, miraculously, there is usually a third long strip on my sammy). My standing order is the veggie bánh mì with their chili crisp tofu and eggplant. Contrary to what my eggplant fixation might imply, I am not a vegetarian. I am a total omnivore, eat plenty of meat and just gravitate towards veggies when I can. But, meat dieharders take heed: the veggie bánh mì is so good, SO good, I have not strayed from it long enough to try anything else besides the beef bánh mì. And, I have eaten a LOT of these bánh mì. Don’t sleep on ‘em, even if you have a sharp tooth, is all I’m saying.
There are really lovely sides and snacks, too. I find myself ordering a bánh mì and either the sweet potatoes, which are delightfully roasted and caramelized and super well rounded with flavor from fish sauce and herbs and what I think is a little chili crisp, or the spring rolls, stuffed with fresh herbs and tofu, and making it my whole eating plan for the day. Half a sandwich for lunch. Mid-day snack of sweet potatoes or spring roll. Half a sandwich for dinner - it holds up beautifully.
Eventually, I would love to do a deep dive into this business and Grace and Chad as chefs. For someone who has kicked around kitchens in this town for over twenty years, they seemingly came out of nowhere. But I know that is not true even in the slightest and that, when I wasn’t looking, Nashville became a big enough town so incredibly fast that I stopped being able to keep track of all the really great cooks coming into its orbit. I’m so glad they are here and making such a huge impact on our city’s eating habits and expectations. They have set a very correct course for quality and I’m here to champion it however I can.
You can find East Side Bánh Mì at 1000 Gallatin Ave, Nashville, TN 37206. They have dine in and take out. I recommend ordering online as it seems very efficient and timely, as they get busy. UberEats also delivers, ahem, fast and frequently. :)
They are open for you Monday - Saturday 11a - 3pm.
And they live here, as do their menus and information about their whole team, on the internet.
3. Bill’s Sandwich Palace
I’ve saved this one for last because, dear reader, I cannot be partial about this business. Full disclosure, I have kitchen brothers. I grew up in kitchens in this city in my 20’s and 30’s and the family I have in this town is by and large made up of shit kickers and ass grabbers (note: this does not mean they grab ass, it is an old, probably not ok to use, kitchen term used for people who are the best of the best when it comes to shooting the shit, pulling a prank, and being both cantankerous and charming, somehow, all at the same time) whom I have worked with in kitchens.
Aaron Clemins is very high on this list of kitchen brothers, top five humans, true blue cooks, and very dear to my heart.
But, also, I’m kind of an asshole who will tell the truth, so if his sandwiches weren’t good, he wouldn’t be on this list.
And, BOY, are his sandwiches good.
Way back in the olden days, Aaron and I used to talk about sandwiches, bemoan the lack of them in this city and, if we ever had time, he would crank out some very good ones for us to eat during prep hours. These conversation were the most fun when Tom Lazzaro, pasta maker and Italian marketeer of the famed and very important Lazzaroli Pasta (RIP Lazzaroli Pasta! I miss you always Tom, please reopen and make us pasta once more!), would sit at the bar and talk about “real sandwiches” and how you have to start with good bread. Ps. This is what cooks do when we drink at bars. We talk about sandwiches. A lot.
Aaron helmed the kitchen, and I’ll say, kept the menu lively and consistent and true, for over a decade at City House. He was (and is) one of the most dedicated cooks you’ll ever meet. This is where we met. He was my best taste tester because he was my most honest taste tester.
SO, when he left City House, wandered for a bit as we all do when we leave our kitchens, and returned to Nashville to focus on sandwiches, I was pleased as punch - both for my friend’s return and for the sandwiches we dreamed of all those years ago to finally be a reality.
Sadly, while Bill’s started, I was suffering from some pretty serious health issues that docs said might be easier to handle if I cut out gluten and alcohol and dairy. I chose gluten in that line up because, fuck life if you can’t eat cheese and drink wine, and I missed out on the crazy days of experiencing the true nature of Bill’s pop-ups. But, it is worth noting that they offer killer gluten free options, including a Fried Chicken Sandwich, my god, and a KILLER veggie sandwich that holds up against GF bread. I think, though, that Aaron’s strongest suite is a hearty, meaty hoagie style sandwich. He seems to really enjoy dreaming those up. Just read this description:
The TRIBUTE TO TOMMY takes us back to the Tommy DiNic’s classic we had in Philly! (We use greens cause it’s the south y’all)
Tender roasted pork shoulder, caramelized onions, sharp provolone cheese, garlic and chili braised greens all inside a garlic butter toasted Bolillo roll
He has built a menu that reflects his pure midwestern style Meat-Joy (trademark that, Clemins) and has, clutch your pearls Nashville, FUN, with his ingredients. Do you know how often the food world doesn’t have FUN?! You’d be surprised. He even named a hot dog after my bff, Alisa Martin, who started a weenie truck years ago called I Dream of Weenie (still there, different owners) and served a pimento cheese and chow-chow dog that became a Nashville wonder.
Aaron and his sweet and kind wife Christen have been a strong team building Bill’s over the last few years. Watching them finally get a chance to work together is, as a friend, something to celebrate.
Another thing to celebrate (which you’ve all heard by now): Bill’s Sandwich Palace is currently in the process of moving into Nashville’s beloved Sweet 16th Bakery.
Read The Nashville Scene article here!
As all restaurant openings go, the date is still a moving target and the menu is currently being developed for daily services. BUT! They are still popping up at TKO on Gallatin Pike (address below) and you should watch their IG page for updates on opening and sandwich specials!
Pre-orders for Saturday and Sunday sandwich pickups open on Fridays.
IG Notes: WEEKEND LUNCH ONLY / SAT 11-3pm + SUN 11-2pm (inside TKO) Preorders open FRIDAY.
TKO is located at 4204 Gallatin Pike, Nashville, TN 37216.
You can pre-order and find them online HERE!
One last thing!
This list would not be complete without a nod to Mitchell Deli, who has kept my sandwich lifestyle alive for many a year in this city! They are always packed, always friendly and always serving up consistently good damn sandwiches! Visit them daily from 8am-4pm at 1306 McGavock Pk, Nashville, TN 37216 and don’t forget about their amazing breakfast burrito. (You can oder online through their website, too!)
See you next week for a New Orleans celebration everyone!
Love, L
Well, now i really want a sandwich. Specifically a bill’s pulled pork with greens et al. Great article!!! PS: Tom - rooting for a return of Lazzaroli pasta shop…the pasta & the people, top notch!
Lisa you captured the local bread and sandwich world beautifully. You chose to include all-stars like Aaron, Tom (yes, please come back), Dozen, City House (an important base camp), TKO, and gratefully Mitchell’s. I admit I’ve not yet had a Bill’s sandwich. That will change soon. I’m salivating.