Nashville Nashville Travel Guide: Best Hotels, Restaurants & Experiences

Tennessee's sole National Landmark hotel anchors downtown Nashville with its Italian marble entryway, Russian walnut paneling, and a restored vaulted stained-glass ceiling that commands the lobby. Jean-Georges Vongerichten operates two restaurants here—signature Drusie & Darr and all-day café The Pink Hermit—while the Your Song, Your Story program pairs guests with local musicians for songwriting sessions. Even pets receive their own masseuse and dedicated room service menu.

Ivy cloaks the exterior of this 215-room sustainability-focused property, its interiors drawing from Great Smoky Mountains aesthetics through reclaimed wood doors weathered to evoke Tennessee's flood-marked cabins. The Bamford Wellness Spa specializes in Himalayan salt stone treatments, while 1 Kitchen—helmed by Top Chef alumnus Chris Crary—sources Appalachian heritage lamb and seasonal produce within a 200-mile radius. A rooftop bar surveys downtown, and pets receive an enthusiastic welcome.

Nashville's original luxury boutique hotel channels Music City's creative pulse through two professional Writers Studios—equipped with soundproof booths, guitars, and industry-standard recording software—designed by Dierks Bentley and Ryan Tedder. The intimate Analog venue hosts live performances five nights weekly, while Urban Farmer Steakhouse delivers seasonal, locally sourced cuts. Studio 11 Design's 2017 renovation wrapped 250 rooms in reclaimed wood and marble modernism, crowned by a split-level penthouse with grand piano and private elevator.

Dark wood floors meet boldly hued woven rugs beneath custom Flat Vernacular wallpaper, while bathrooms pair white subway tile with vintage claw-foot tubs—Thompson Nashville channels Music City's creative energy through design rather than cliché. The rooftop bar L.A. Jackson draws locals for craft beer and seasonal small plates; downstairs, Chef Nathan Duensing's Marsh House delivers gulf-to-gulch Southern cooking. A brass compass mosaic marks the lobby floor, anchoring the hotel's urban authenticity.

Rising 33 stories in a distinctive oval glass tower, JW Marriott Nashville commands the downtown skyline with interiors of gold and bronze metalwork echoing the Cumberland River's flow. Michael Mina's Bourbon Steak crowns the building as the city's highest rooftop restaurant, while below, a 12,000-square-foot pool deck with private cabanas offers year-round retreat. The in-house Stompin' Grounds Market draws locals for its Maker's Mark-flavored gelato.

Behind a buzzy cocktail bar in Wedgewood-Houston, Bastion delivers a single tasting menu of contemporary Southern cooking with Italian inflections, earning its Michelin star through dishes that balance playfulness with precision. Candy-striped agnolotti arrives alongside silky creamed corn; black cod poached in champagne butter rests on kohlrabi noodles with bacon-studded parsley. The finale—Southern chess pie with sake lees and cantaloupe sherbet—captures the kitchen's clever East-meets-South sensibility.

Chefs Andy Doubrava and Tiffani Ortiz orchestrate their one-starred tasting menu from behind a U-shaped counter, turning dinner into culinary theater. Their maximalist approach celebrates Tennessee's seasons through preservation techniques and local sourcing—think deboned chicken wings glazed with sauce Périgord, or crisped lamb neck pooled in candy cap mushroom broth over Carolina Gold rice. Intimate, inventive, unmissable.

Chef Vivek Surti's Germantown tasting room orchestrates a singular collision of Indian heritage and Southern roots, with guests seated together for simultaneous service that evokes an intimate dinner party. The open kitchen delivers inventive compositions—tomato sandwiches layered with masala onion aioli, short ribs perfumed with Indian spices—before a finale of saffron-thickened Gujarati yogurt, chai, and brown butter cardamom cookies.

Tony Mantuano, the chef who shaped Italian fine dining at Chicago's Spiaggia—where Obama celebrated his 2008 victory—now anchors The Joseph hotel with this refined Italian table. The hulking cotoletta alla Milanese, perfected through research across Milan, shares billing with a glass-enclosed cheese cave and a roving Aperol Spritz cart serving The Mantuano, the chef's tequila-spiked variation. Monthly regional wine dinners spotlight provinces from Campania to Tuscany.

A former East Nashville church sanctuary now hosts this inventive restaurant where Laotian flavors meet French technique. The kitchen delivers shareable plates with unexpected combinations—a scallop mousse-filled crêpe resting in nam prik blanquette demonstrates the culinary ambition at play. Over 100 wines fill a custom cellar, while the sacred architecture lends an atmospheric backdrop to adventurous dining.

Spanning 15,000 square feet of reclaimed wood and limestone within Tennessee farmland, this rural sanctuary anchors its treatments in on-site harvests—honey and herbs from the surrounding acres join Ecocert-certified organic skincare. A thermal circuit moves through eucalyptus steam, Himalayan salt sauna, and a heated outdoor mineral pool overlooking Lake Mishkin. The signature Rock Star massage deploys warm candle oil and salt stones for deep muscular release.