Autumn green dumplings Nashville has of course had good vegetarian restaurants for a long time. In fact, I pulled together a list of some of the city’s best vegan and vegetarian outposts earlier this year. But we haven’t really had a fine-dining vegetarian spot — a place to put on, well, your fanciest pants and have a multicourse plant-centric meal.
Until now. Until Fancypants. Fancypants 921 Dickerson Pike wearefancypants.
com The team who brought us Butcher & Bee and Redheaded Stranger also brings us this East Side excuse to eat vegetables. Fancypants is not strictly vegetarian. You can add on a ribeye steak, and I’m sure it is delicious.
But I’ve been too focused on the produce-heavy section of the menu to try it. There are nine vegetarian dishes listed, and just like at a meat-and-three, you pick three. The prix fixe is $70 for all three, and they’re coursed out over the evening.
It’s a lot of food, but well-plated and well-paced, particularly if you enjoy one of Fancypants’ signature cocktails in between courses. I have yet to taste anything I haven’t liked, but the kitchen’s finesse with root vegetables has produced some of my favorites. This summer’s turnip-noodle lasagna made me think about turnips differently.
Now, this fall’s rutabaga dumpling, served with horseradish oil, is a combination of flavors that is hearty but not heavy. The experience reminds me of New York’s Dirt Candy; Washington, D.C.
’s Oyster, Oyster; and my old haunt, Chicag.