Nashville Keeps Its Three Michelin Stars and Adds Three More in Year Two
Nashville's fine-dining map got bigger overnight. At the Michelin Guide's American South ceremony Wednesday night at The Pinnacle in Nashville Yards, the three restaurants that earned the city's first stars a year ago all kept them, and three more joined the club.
Bastion, Locust and The Catbird Seat retained their one-star ratings. Newly starred this year are 5th & Taylor, Junior and Present Tense, each awarded a single star, which brings the number of starred Nashville restaurants to six. Maiz de la Vida was named to the Bib Gourmand list, the guide's shorthand for good cooking at a fair price.
A second year is the real test
A first guide can read like a debut party. A second one tells you whether the judging was a snapshot or a standard. Michelin's inspectors dine anonymously and grade the plate, not the room, and a one-star rating, in the guide's own language, means high-quality cooking that is worth a stop. Keeping all three original stars while adding three suggests the city's kitchens are being measured against that line year after year, not just admired once.
It also matters that this was the second time Michelin has released star ratings for restaurants across the South, and that the ceremony was held in Nashville itself. The crowd in the room was a regional one, with restaurateurs from across the guide's footprint, but the headline for local diners is simple: Nashville now has twice as many starred restaurants as it did a year ago.
What last year's guide already told us
The 2025 edition did more than hand out three stars. It put Bib Gourmand recognition on Kisser, Peninsula, Redheaded Stranger, Sho Pizza Bar, SS Gai, St. Vito Focacceria and Uzbegim, and it gave a sommelier award to the wine bar Bad Idea. That mix of a wine-bar, a pizza counter, a Thai kitchen and an Uzbek dining room is the more interesting story for people who eat out on a Tuesday: Michelin's attention here has not been limited to tasting-menu rooms.
Planning a table
If you want to try one of the newly starred restaurants, go to the restaurant's own reservation page for current availability and pricing, since both tend to shift after a ceremony like this. For everything that did not make the list, Nashville's dining scene is wide open: our guide to the best restaurants in Nashville is a good place to start, and our preview of Michelin night has the background on what the city was defending going in. Coming from out of town for a dinner? Book your stay »
Image: illustrative, AI-generated – not the actual location.
