Sushi, booze, and stunning big city views await 28 floors high at Skye Lounge.
In your quest for a downtown rooftop experience that provides great food, drinks, and a jaw-dropping view, there’s no shortage of options. Lower Broadway is peppered with country celeb watering holes offering elevated patio perches. Savvy SoBro hotels such as Four Seasons and The Joseph boast remarkable vistas of Music City and surrounds. But for a different and loftier perspective, visit the Skye Lounge on the 28th floor of the Sheraton Grand.
While new, it comes with an intriguing history as Nashville’s first sky-high restaurant. In 1975, there were but a handful of high rises downtown when a new luxury hotel, the Hyatt Regency, opened. At 28 stories, with a structure that looked like a UFO had landed on top, it added a distinctive silhouette to the sparse cityscape. Moreover, that unusual construction, encircled in windows, housed a revolving restaurant and lounge, The Polaris Room. While enjoying high-end dinner, drinks, and service, guests also enjoyed the thrill of a 360-degree view of the city as the Polaris made its slow revolution.
Ownership shifted in the ‘90s to the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza and, in 2000, the Sheraton Grand. At some point, the machinery powering the movement broke, and was never repaired. In 2016, the hotel began major renovations that necessitated its removal. The room would never spin again. No matter. The extensive remodeling of the hotel, completed in the fall of 2024, is a stunner. The lobby alone has been revamped into an open modern reception. Your eyes can’t help but look upward at the series of grand bubble orb lights seemingly suspended in space, and the interior elevators climbing the floors, ultimately leading to that extraordinary viewing place. Almost 50 years later, the of-a-time Polaris Room has a new life as the Skye Lounge. Within the darkened room, tables line the windows, each takes in a dazzling panorama of our city transformed — a dense illuminated geometry of offices, hotels, and residences in brilliant lights and color. There’s not a bad seat in the house.
Menu offerings have taken on a new spin as well. Called Sora Kitchen, it is helmed by local chef Art Insyxiengmay. A first-generation Laotian-American, chef Art (as he likes to be called) gained notoriety during the pandemic for his Ricey & Company personal sushi catering service. His Sora Kitchen prepares nigiri, sushi, and other Japanese-inspired fare. It began as a pop-up and, due to its immense popularity, has evolved into a partnership with the hotel.
Cocktails follow suit. The Velvet Rope blends peach vodka, botanicals, ginger beer, and key lime — a variation on the Mule. Coconut- imbued vodka adds another element to their espresso-styled martini, also punched up with vanilla, chocolate bitters, and coffee liqueur. The showiest quaff is the Disco Inferno. It takes its cue from an Old Fashioned, however, its base is Toki Japanese whiskey. Other ingredients include pear and chocolate bitters, and an infusion of smoke through a skull-shaped dome placed over the drink and fired up at your table. Smoke puffs out of the skull’s nostril openings and lingers on the top of the cocktail before dissipating. Potent, this is one to sip and savor.
Start with some familiar shareable bites, done well. Edamame are properly steamed and sprinkled with fine sea salt from Japan. Pork gyoza dumplings are golden fried to a crunch, served on a bed of shredded cabbage, with ponzu sauce for dipping. A mound of Bang-Bang tempura shrimp crackles under the tangy sweet- hot chili glaze.
Chef Art offers a roster of traditional rolls, including classics you’d expect, such as the California roll and Tuna Maki. But direct your attention to his specialties, which demonstrate his creativity. We were drawn immediately to Fire Crunch, which combines seared salmon, spicy crab, cucumber, scallion, and avocado, dotted in eel sauce and spicy mayo. The crunch factor comes from flakes of tempura and a topping of tobiko-tiny red roe. If you are feeling indecisive, opt for Crazy 88, which offers a progression of fish along the length of the roll—moving from shrimp to yellowtail to tuna to salmon. The El Paso Texas roll also found favor at our table: It underscores seared Japanese A5 wagyu beef and crabmeat, along with crispy onions and Japanese barbecue sauce. Vegetarians have options, and will be pleased with the Johnny Mo. It brings together more predictable elements: sweet potato, cucumber, and avocado with some surprises: corn creme brûlée and tempura fried carrot. Dabbed with yuzu aioli, it’s as delicious as it sounds.
Should you want a dessert, the delicately flavored Matcha cheesecake — so pretty in green and balanced with the red of fresh strawberry purée — makes a fine choice. Savor a little sweetness from up high, far from Broadway’s tourist-driven fray, and reflect on how our city has grown.