Tayst

We were lucky enough to snag a Nashville Originals gift certificate to Tayst during the last sale. Tayst is the first and only (so far - we hope there will be more!) green-certified restaurant in Nashville and we happily used our gift certificate for an evening meal. And what a treat it was.

We made a reservation for two and were warmly greeted upon arrival. I was very impressed with the seating layout of the restaurant. There was ample seating and while we were seated in a fairly busy area, the positioning of the table made it so we still felt placed away from everyone else and could have a quiet conversation to ourselves.

After we were seated, staff began swooping in to help us place our orders. First, we were offered a wine menu. Frequent readers of our blog may notice a lack of mention of wine on my posts. To be honest, Josh is allergic to most alcoholic drinks and I don't have much stomach for them myself. Sometimes when we visit a restaurant and turn down the wine menu we feel that that choice sets a negative tone and service can be lacking. However, I really appreciated the way that it was handled by the Tayst staff. The menu was offered to us in the form of a question: "would you like to see our wine menu?" And our turning down of the offer didn't seem to bother them at all. However, if you do like to imbibe you will find the wine list at Tayst to be very, very extensive and each menu item is accompanied by a carefully chosen wine. I thought it was nice that you can order wine in increments of 2 oz (about one-fourth of a glass, I believe), 4 oz, 6 oz, and 8 oz, which means that if you want to try just a bit (or want to conserve some money) you can enjoy the great care the chefs have made to choose the accompanying wines.

The menu is set up in sections of "first tayst" (appetizers), "second tayst" (salads), and "main tayst" (entrees). The evening we dined the menu also had an insert of the chef's playful "Value Menu", two prix fixe combinations and a tasting menu. We decided to focus on ordering two entrees and two desserts.

We'll describe our entrees here, but don't expect to ask for the same menu items if you visit Tayst yourself. The menu changes constantly, based upon what local food items the chefs can acquire at that time. Josh ordered the evening's trout dish ($23), which came with a tiny grilled cheese, a baked apple, and salted caramel sauce. It was a very interesting combination, in a good way. I had the evening's pork dish, which was made up of a pork chop ($21), dark wild rice, and cranberry coulis. The pork chop was cooked perfectly, still very juicy, and I loved the rice. My only complaint with the dish was that I could not detect the cranberry flavor of the coulis, but this could have been because other flavors were crowding it out.

For dessert, Josh had a slice of chocolate terrine with crème anglaise ($7). Wow! It was fantastic. I tried it as well and we agreed that it had the truest chocolate flavor we'd ever tasted in a dessert. I chose the pumpkin ricotta doughnuts ($7) and they were fantastic as well. They came piping hot, dusted in cinnamon sugar, and were accompanied by a dollop of thick chocolate mousse, the texture of which was divine.

The service at Tayst was excellent. Our waitress gave helpful suggestions on what to order and kept us apprised on the progress of our meals when there was a slight delay in them coming out from the kitchen.

Overall, we very much enjoyed our meal at Tayst. It's clear that an astounding amount of work goes into the restaurant's operation, from the sourcing of the ingredients to the restaurant and menu design to the helpfulness of the staff. We should note that it's not a place to go if you're looking for large quantities of food (or dining with people not open to new food experiences). Tayst is a place you should go to learn about new flavor combinations, taste your food carefully and slowly, and appreciate the great craftsmanship that goes into your meal.

Tayst
2100 21st Ave S Nashville, TN 37212-4318
(615) 383-1953
Open Tue-Thu 5pm-10pm; Fri-Sat 5pm-11pm