Nashville
American, Breakfast, Southern
55 South is marginal food that Nashville has collectively decided to accept. Nobody should.
55 South is the kind of restaurant that exists because enough people showed up without a better plan. The food is marginal — not offensive, not interesting, just below the standard Nashville has set for itself. Fried chicken without crunch. Shrimp and grits without depth. Biscuits that exist.
The city has stopped accepting this. 55 South hasn't noticed.
Southern comfort food on Broadway doing just enough to keep tables full of people who didn't know to go somewhere else.
55 South isn't trying to be anything it isn't. It's a casual Southern restaurant in Midtown doing the things you'd expect — comfort food, familiar dishes, a relaxed room. In a different city, that would be enough. In Nashville, it's a harder sell.
The menu covers the expected territory: shrimp and grits, fried chicken, Southern staples done without much deviation from the script. The service is fine. The space is comfortable. Nothing will offend you.
The issue is context. Nashville has raised the bar on Southern cooking to the point where "fine" isn't a compliment anymore. When you've got Arnold's Country Kitchen, Biscuit Love, and a dozen other places doing this same food at a higher level with more soul, spending money on the middle-of-the-road version starts to feel like a choice you didn't mean to make.
