A Nice Chap

Chappy's on Church
1721 Church St
Nashville, TN
615-322-9932

We had been watching an old downtown car showroom be transformed to something. We thought it was going to be a sports bar, or night club, or something other than what it is. To our surprise, it is now Chappy's which is a Gulf Region (I mean Mexico not Persian) inspired restaurant. Chappy had lived in New Orleans, and had a restaurant on the coast of the Gulf, and Katrina just wiped out everything. Chappy came north to Nashville, decided it wasn't too bad here. and opened up shop.
Here is Chappy. If you look on his restaurant website, you can see his logo drawing looks just like him. Chappy's is designed for a diner who wants to treat themselves well, like you would if you were a tourist in New Orleans. There was a level of decorum that seemed to come out of me as I was there. There was a level of Gulf Coast style civility from the staff, but there was also an air of earnest hope that we really enjoyed our meal and dining experience. On top of the decorum and civility, there was also this layer of "letting your hair down" and "kick back" to really enjoy yourself as a member of the Chappy family. The vibe around Chappy's is really unique in Nashville, I never thought a place could be like this in Nashville, and I thought I would have to travel all the way down the Natchez Trace to enjoy the full Gulf Coast dining experience. Lucky for me, I get to stay home and get all the goods from Chappy's.

Our meal started off with a loaf of bread and four different types of butter. There was butter, cajun butter, berry butter and chive butter. I had a little taste of each. Yummy.

We started our meal with soup, Matt got the gumbo and I got the oyster and artichoke made with real cream. Yup, I was not counting fat grams this evening, and I just enjoyed the soup.

Matt got the flounder with crab, and a potato on the side. This picture does not do the flounder justice. It was very tasty indeed. I was debating on whether to post the photo or not because our memory of this flounder was "WOW" and the picture is just "oh." Believe me, how can you go wrong with fresh crab and cream sauce on top of a lightly fried flouder filet?

I got the oyster plate. Again, the photo does not do the oysters justice. I generally eat my oysters raw and not fried because I do not like heavy breaded fried things. I ordered the fried oysters anyway, just to see what Chappy was made out of. What I got were very lightly breaded oysters with a little corn meal in the batter, and oysters that were just cooked, not over cooked, and I could still taste the oyster. I liked them.

I really hope that Nashville shows Chappy a warm welcome and insentive to stay. I think that there is a place for Chappy here, and we have a nice Gulf Coast restaurant right here in town.