A Taste of Nashville - Etch

#2 Etch

1. Neighborhood: Downtown - Demonbreun and 3rd

(Ground floor of the Encore Building)

2. History: Another recently opened restaurant, Etch is run by Chef Deb Paquette. They offer bar seating, dining room and an open kitchen with bar seating as well. 

(information from website: www.etchrestaurant.com)

The Encore tower is right across the street from the Pinnacle building.

3. Hours: 

Monday - Friday : Lunch 11 - 2, Dinner 5 - 10 (bar opens at 4)

*Happy hour is 4 - 6:30

Saturday - just dinner

Sunday - closed, brunch coming soon!

4. Price:  $$$ = $15 - $35

5. Parking: Parking is a pain downtown. We ended up paying $5 at a lot and walked a block.

6. Atmosphere: Because Etch is located in the business district, the customers were professional and older. Pretty modern but not hip like most trendy Nashville restaurants. 

Photo credit: nashvilleguru.com

Bar at Etch
Photo credit: thedailymeal.net

7. Service: This one is hard to review because we stayed in the bar area, we were at a small table near the bar. We did not have traditional servers. But I felt like the bartender was not very professional. She always came to our table at weird times and carried herself pompously like we were bothering her.

8. Menu:

Another tricky category to give an honest answer. Michael and I just wanted appetizers and a drink so we did not dine at Etch. Their dinner menu looks tasty, including: 

However, we found the Happy Hour menu to be really delicious. Here is what we enjoyed:

Pork Belly - We really liked the combination of cilantro, raisins and nuts but didn't care for the tofu.

Duck Confit - Delicious with the candied orange peel and orange bread. I loved the balsamic blackberries.

Butter Tasting - So good. This is on the dinner menu and it was the first thing Michael saw when we were browsing restaurants in Nashville. We had to keep ordering bread to finish it because we didn't want it to go to waste. It is like getting a cheese plate for dessert. Goat butter, truffle butter, smoked plugra butter, duck butter...mmmm.

10. Ranking: Based solely on atmosphere and our Happy Hour experience, we would give it a 6.5 .

The food was good, but we weren't blown away and the service was mediocre. We feel like we need to have a true dining experience to really say whether or not we would go back.