So I randomly picked up a copy of Metromix/Nashville Scene/Rage (one of those) to pass the time before I had to sit in on a psych interview, and lo and behold, I saw that there was a new bar in Nashville. And not just any bar, I dare say–no, it’s not a dive bar, it’s not honkey tonk, nor is it an Irish bar–it’s a transplant from New York or some other big city, as they say. It’s called The Patterson House, and it’s only a couple hundred feet from my doorstep!
I guess now is the time where I announce that Edisto and Sweetgrass BBQ are shuttered. Yeah, I know I’m late to the party, but I guess I thought that it was Edisto that was building that hideous outpouching of an expasion to the house it formerly occupied. All that speculation that it must’ve been a pretty successful restaurant flushed down the toilet. Oh well.
Anyway, am I excited that this supposedly swanky new bar is in my neighborhood? I guess, kinda, but now street parking is going to be a biatch at night (they’re apparently open 5pm-3am Tues-Sun–did I mention they were a cocktail bar? In the Bible Belt?). So yeah, maybe it’s the distance. Or maybe it’s the prospect of drinking something other than beer and Long Islands. Cocktails conjure up a more mature environment whenever I think of them. But alas, I’m still a poor student, so I won’t be blowing my tuition at the bar too often.
So maybe it’s this passion that Nashville trendsters have been gushing about over the Internets; the passion for food, the passion for drinks, the passion for…ice (hot damn!). The chef is an alumnus of Fat Duck, Craft, and Alinea, but all I really read was Fat Duck: the number two restaurant in the world, second only to El Bulli, purveyor of gastronomic cuisine, and let’s not forget about the gnarly case of food poisoning recently (but I doubt he was there at the time). I’ve never been there, but I have seen the pictures, which look positively delicious, although food porn does lie every now and then. However, items like the bar’s Elvis Sandwich (peanut butter, bananas, bacon) exude more trendiness than imagination and insight. Nevertheless, that is quite a pedigree in the kitchen of a cocktail bar (not restaurant) and in Nashville of all the places. As for the drinks, after reading this post I am convinced that these guys aren’t amateurs.
Yet while reading about the bar, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this would be some gathering place for trendsters, possibly hipsters, some famous people, and people who think they’re famous–all part of the crowd I tried to avoid when dining out in LA and SF. As I’m reading over what I’m writing–all the things that scare me away from an establishment, the RIDONCULOUS amount of hype, the Elvis sandwich–it sounds like I’m hating on a place I haven’t even tried. But you know what? My friends will tell you that I’ve been bugging them all day to go there with me, and I’ll probably go there by myself if I have to (at 5 to avoid crowds, of course) because I WANT TO TRY THIS PLACE SOOO BAD. And please, I really hope to eat my words.
I want to leave fearing that I’ll go broke from going back too often.
