5th & Taylor — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

Redemption. (Let me explain)

This was my first time visiting 5th & Taylor. We decided to give it a try as we were celebrating a few March birthdays in our party. It just so happened to be St Paddy’s Day also, which may or may not have attributed to this “almost 4-star redemption review”.

The place was packed, which like always, is a good sign. I do recommend making a reservation. We could only get a 5:15pm reservation which is perfect as my wife and I love to eat early. We ended up running a little late so we called the hostess to make sure they knew we still intended on keeping our reservation. They were very gracious and told us that the next party (after us) wasn’t due until 8pm, so we could take our time.

The ambiance was great. Dark, artistic, kinda rustic feeling, and of course very, “hip”. Not surprising as this is located in Germantown. We sat in an area with floor-to-ceiling art. Very cool. We loved the vibe.

The bathroom situation was rather odd. The first challenge was trying to locate the bathroom (which is in the back left corner of the restaurant). The second challenge was trying to figure out which door to go into! No joke, I almost landed myself in the women’s bathroom my first go around, and actually saw another man walk straight into the women’s bathroom (accidentally) only to be scolded by one of the servers. So it wasn’t just me folks LOL! There were only two stalls in the men’s bathroom so a line tends to form, and tile wall decor was making my eyes do weird things. Needless to say, I survived the trip to the bathroom with no casualties.

The hostess introduced herself and we ordered drinks. I ordered my usual, pinot noir, and it was good (as usual) so nothing much to report on there. The others in our party, however, ordered specialty drinks and they looked fantastic.

Next was the food. We ordered a few appetizers, sadly, not pictured, the cheddar biscuits, but they were delicious. Myself and a friend both ordered the filet, she ordered her filet as it came prepared (with cheese on top) and I subbed the cheese for Shishito peppers. We both ordered our steaks cooked MEDIUM (red center). Well, both our filets came out looking like beef jerky and cooked well done. Now, I hate being the “that guy” who complains or sends back food, but this was too egregious to stay silent, and plus I had my wife say something for me LOL. Side note- over the past 10 years of marriage if I’ve learned anything, it’s this; better to have a beautiful woman flash you her beautiful smile and politely and apologetically explain that the food needs to be sent back, rather than a grumpy, hungry man with a $43 over-cooked steak!

So the steaks were sent back, but we decided to change our orders to the beer can chicken just to avoid another over-cooked situation. They happily granted our request, but not only did they bring out the beer can chicken, but also one of our filets (free of charge) cooked medium, just so we can taste it. This kind of customer service is what every restaurant needs to emulate! That right there is 5-star worthy! And they totally redeemed themselves, because not only was the beer can chicken delicious, so was that medium- cooked filet.

Overall the food was great, the customer service was excellent and we had a fun time. I will definitely be coming back for another visit. Thanks for the wonderful customer service,...

Took my wife here for a birthday dinner after a friend’s recommendation. We had a reservation for 8.30 and they sent us over to the bar. After waiting 15-20 minutes, we were seated. We asked for recommendations from the waitress since it was our first time. We ordered the cheese platter and duck wings. They came fairly fast and tasted good. But after that our experience started to go downhill. I ordered the ribeye and she ordered the beer chicken. We waited.. waited and waited.. waitress never checked up on us for the reason why it was taking so long to come out. After some quite time, my wife had to say something to her and her excuse was “we are having private dinners tonight so kitchen is a little backed up” first of all, if you are serving private dining in the restaurant, you need to have a separate kitchen and kitchen staff for that occasion. Having worked at the restaurants in Manhattan, I know that first hand. Finally, my wife started to get really frustrated and I had to speak to the manager for the first time in my life in a restaurant I went to. After a while, I walked up to the kitchen and talked to her again and told her about my concerns. They did not charge us for the entrees and offered us a gift card since they wanted us to give them a second chance but we will not be giving it a second chance. We had high expectations going into this restaurant and we had an unpleasant experience. The fact that it happened for my wife’s birthday made it even worse. As far as the entree’s steak did not taste like ribeye and it was probably tasted that way because of the quality of the ribeye. Ribeye is a tender meat and gives this explosive flavors in your mouth but I did not experience that here unfortunately. It was hard to cut it even with a steak knife to begin with. Mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts were good as well as the jalapeño cornbread. Creamed spinach tasted mediocre and didn’t look like an actual creamed spinach. Nonetheless, if it was not for a birthday occasion, I wouldn’t have cared this much but this was a special occasion and unfortunately, we came back home very...

I was actually really disappointed with this restaurant. It had every characteristic to lead to a great dining experience. The first kind of annoying part, they had some intricate directions of how to text when you arrive and they'll text when your table is ready, because of COVID, which would have been fine but they didn't actually operate like that. We texted as the directions stated, and got nothing. So we walked in like everyone else seemed to be doing and that seemed to be the actual way they did things.

Next, we get seated in a timely manner, which was good; it was a good table and that was a decent start to the experience. The waiter came by, filled our water glasses then disappeared. After ~25 minutes, I finally waved someone down who looked like a manager and let him know we hadn't even gotten drink orders in yet.

From there, the service improved. We got our cocktails, a bottle of wine, ordered the bacon wrapped quail as an appetizer, which was absolutely amazing (5 star dish, hands down). As a consolation for getting forgotten about shortly after getting seated, they comped us both a cheese board and a cheddar biscuit appetizer. Both were okay, nothing special but free.

For entrees, I ordered the duck'am and my wife ordered the hanger steak. We also ordered a side of the Brussels sprouts, but they actually never even came out. I think the waiter just forgot to put them in. My duck had great flavor, but it was definitely chewy. The hangers steak was on point though, delicious. Ultimately the food was hit and miss, with some being amazing and some being just okay. I honestly just wish the waiter had gotten the Brussels sprouts in instead of the free cheddar biscuit thing, because that's what I actually wanted.

As I stated in the beginning, I'm severely disappointed with our experience at 5th and Taylor, especially for a meal that cost over $200. I've had far better for much less, far better for the same, and far better for more; basically, I'd say this one is worth skipping, with spotty service and...