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Emily Dorio
Heading downtown to catch a show or a game? Your options for eating at a locally owned, chef-driven restaurant keep getting better.
Joining trailblazer chef Deb Paquette’s Etch, chef Trey Cioccia’s The Farm House, and the just-opened Liberty Common, the team behind Two Ten Jack—Seed Hospitality’s Jess Benefield, Trey Burnette, and Patrick Burke—recently opened The Green Pheasant on 1st Avenue South, bringing a seasonal, Japanese-inspired menu to a part of town that desperately needed it.
The team’s had a faithful following since putting its first izakaya in East Nashville in 2014; they opened another Two Ten Jack in Chattanooga a year later. While The Green Pheasant, named for the national bird of Japan, was created with the same mission of offering familiar and approachable versions of Japanese cuisine, this restaurant allows the team to truly soar.
Open lunch through dinner, The Green Pheasant pays tribute to its inspired country from the design down to the menu. Overhead, an installation of larger-than-life origami, created by the New Hat Project artists Kelly Diehl and Elizabeth Williams, moves playfully above the bar. Throughout the room, sultry greens and earthy yellows are accented by gold trim and mod lighting. Upstairs, a private dining space is rimmed in potted plants, and beside the bar, a “screen” of shelving shades the kitchen.
Behind the bar, beverage director Kynsey Hunter puts to use her certification as Nashville’s only sake sommelier. Her deep and thoughtful selection of sake and shochu is listed by bottle size, as well as categorization. For an introduction to the rice-based spirit, consider “cup sakes,” served in individually portioned glasses. Hunter also highlights highballs on her cocktail list, since they’re a traditional Japanese happy hour drink. Try the refreshingly light Shhhhhu-hi made with shochu, sherry, shiso, and soda. Or, request a pour from the Suntory highball machine, which blends uber-chilled Japanese whisky with intensely sparkling water.
The beverages fully complement the seasonally driven menu, which ranges from cold starters, ramen, and “sando” sets at lunchtime to various dumplings, rice dishes, and quality wagyu steaks at dinner. Fair warning: Much of the menu uses the Japanese names of ingredients, which is why servers have been equipped with Japanese dictionaries—you might need to rely heavily on their patient explanations.
WHAT TO ODER:
Wedges, $12
Okonomiyaki, $11
Tebaski gyoza, $14
Spicy crab noodle, $24
Japanese wagyu, $26 per ounce
A good place to start is the tsukemono, a selection of pickled vegetables, or the tuna tartare, which is neatly placed atop two crispy rice squares. Share a few cold plates, like the wedges, served on skewers with a drizzle of hibachi dressing and shaved carrots, before moving on to the hot section. Dan dan shishitos get tangled up with spicy pork, pickled mustard greens, and peanut bits. A more delicate dish is the sui gyoza, tender dumplings filled with pheasant meat that sit in a shallow pool of country ham dashi and shrimp oil. The tebaski gyoza is a hand-held crowd pleaser—the deboned, then reboned chicken wing is stuffed with shrimp and bits of croissant.
More substantial dishes can be found in the addictive spicy crab noodle, which gets intense umami flavor thanks to crab butter, and chahan, a simple, but flavor-packed fried rice layered with country sausage and a soft-poached egg. Your new favorite bar snack will be the okonomiyaki, a savory, potato based hashbrown that hides ham, bacon, and scallops within its deeply toasted crust—layers of sauces and dancing bonito flakes make it a show-stopper.
Early in the conceptualization of the restaurant, Burnette and Benefield considered creating a Japanese steakhouse. The Green Pheasant ends up going much broader in scope, but steak is still celebrated here. Burnette, especially, wanted to honor a steakhouse style called ikinari—his version is an American skirt that’s sliced and served on a sizzle plate over onions and corn. A step above, the American wagyu, has a nice beef-y marbling—it’s served with a small amount of “real” wasabi, which is in fact very rare, and probably one of the priciest ingredients in the house. For a truly revelatory bite, though, go for the unrivaled, real deal Japanese wagyu, which comes with an A5 grade rating and goes for $26 per ounce.
Because they also serve lunch, the restaurant hits high notes throughout the day—escape for a reasonably priced business lunch and get the teishoku sets, a much grander version of a bento box, loaded with a main, like seared skirt steak, plus miso soup, pickled vegetables, rice and other sides, or the tamago sando set, featuring an extravagant egg salad sandwich made with imported eggs and the team’s house-made Japanese milk bread.
Between lunch and dinner, you’ll discover a happy hour that also happens to give back—a portion of proceeds goes to a different local nonprofit each month, including Conexión Américas this month. It ought to give you yet another good reason to make your way to downtown for a meal.
215 1st Ave S, 615-205-5400; thegreenpheasant.com