Maíz de la Vida's North Nashville outpost is the tortilla shop side of a small local operation that also runs a Gulch restaurant and an East Nashville taco truck. The through-line across all three is corn: chef Julio Hernandez, the restaurant's owner, spent years chasing the right tortilla before betting on it outright during the pandemic, buying a 600-pound molino and importing thousands of pounds of heirloom corn from Mexico.
That corn is the point. It's grown from organic seed lines preserved across generations rather than the industrialized corn common in most U.S. grocery stores, and it's milled into masa on-site using traditional methods. The North Nashville location centers on that tortilla-making process, turning what's usually a background ingredient into the reason to come.
That corn is the point. It's grown from organic seed lines preserved across generations rather than the industrialized corn common in most U.S. grocery stores, and it's milled into masa on-site using traditional methods. The North Nashville location centers on that tortilla-making process, turning what's usually a background ingredient into the reason to come.