From honky-tonk bars to music museums and southern seafood, what’s new in Nashville right now? Scotland on Sunday Travel

With a new direct flight from Heathrow, a visit to Music City hits the right note with visitors

A performance on stage at the Grand Ole Opry House which hosts a live radio show every Saturday.

As a Brit, I feel like no other country welcomes me as warmly as the USA. It must be my accent.

But touching down in Nashville, Tennessee, after the first direct flight from London Heathrow to BNA Nashville Airport with British Airways takes warm welcomes to a new level.

Here, I’m greeted with a truly epic fanfare. As a guitarist serenades me through the terminal, I’m handed a goodie bag containing local produce, fresh socks, and even a country music mixtape.

Everywhere one goes in ‘Music City’ (the name Queen Victoria is said to have given to Nashville), one encounters it in some form or another. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the ‘honky-tonk’ bars along Broadway, the central strip running through downtown.

Nashville has always been a magnet for singer-songwriters, from Elvis to Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton to Taylor Swift. Take Tootsie’s (tootsies.net), for example. Its three floors each point toward a grand stage, upon which a different musicians play each night, with big names playing impromptu sets now and then.

Along Broadway, the true legends of Nashville are immortalised in the city’s endless list of museums.

The Johnny Cash Museum (johnnycashmuseum.com; admission $22.95/£17 + tax) is worthwhile, as is the Patsy Cline Museum next door (patsymuseum.com; $19.95/£15 + tax). These are not just about the people, but the unique city that made them.

The wall of honours inside the County Music Hall of Fame Nashville.

The true magnitude of the city’s relationship with music is revealed in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (countrymusichalloffame.org; admission from $27.95/£21 + tax) – not only in its extensive collection, but in the building itself, which benefitted from a $100 million extension in 2014. Viewed from the front, it looks like a set of piano keys, from above a bass clef.

If you’re not entirely au fait with the country music, this a great place to start your tour of Nashville. Look out for Elvis Presley’s gold Cadillac limousine and the Rotunda, modelled after the WSM radio tower, which contains the plaques of Hall of Fame inductees.

A new museum is never more than a stone’s throw away in Nashville, and on the other side of Broadway is one of exceptional quality. Newly opened in 2021, the National Museum of African American Music (nmaam.org; admission from $24.95/£19 + tax) is an interactive journey like no other. Touchscreen visualisations help visitors build connections between black musicians, learning who influenced who, and how genres from jazz to hip-hop evolved. Apart from being a crucial history lesson, this is the most fun I have ever had in a museum, with participation in a rap battle being my personal highlight.

All these locations orbit the monumental Ryman Auditorium, the so-called ‘Soul of Nashville’ and original home of the Grand Ole Opry radio show, credited with popularising country music across the USA (ryman.com; admission from $26/£19 + tax).

A performance at the Ryman Auditorium Nashville.

A visually astounding presentation welcomes us to this church-turned-theatre, with tales of how the Grand Ole Opry came and went, and how the auditorium itself was saved from the brink by the musicians who owed it their careers.

Nowadays, the show is broadcast from the purpose-built Grand Ole Opry House on the city outskirts, recorded before a live studio audience of 4,400 on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays (opry.com; tickets from $39/£30 + tax, depending on availability). You never know who might take to the stage and I catch country legends Don Schlitz and Randy Travis.

If the Grand Ole Opry is Nashville’s most bombastic tribute to country music, the Bluebird Cafe is surely its most humble (bluebirdcafe.com). Approaching its 40th anniversary in 2022, the intimate but hallowed stage within this unremarkable building has played host to some of the most important singer-songwriters in music history – not least Taylor Swift, who caught the attention of Big Machine CEO Scott Borchetta in this room.

I arrive to watch a session played by Nashville legends Marv Green, Leslie Satcher and Tony Arata. What, I ask them, makes the Bluebird Cafe so special to singer-songwriters like them?

An essential Nashville eatery, Prince's Hot Chicken.

“For us, it’s that one touchstone you can always go to,” explains Arata.

“And it’s the spirit that’s in this room,” Satcher continues. “A million stories have happened in this teeny, little room – things you just can’t explain.”

“You can actually take yourself back in time when you come here,” adds Green.

I have to agree. Forty years of musical energy seems to bounce off these four walls, decorated with the signed portraits of musicians who have played here. No wonder the Bluebird Cafe has become a pilgrimage for music lovers around the world.

Beyond music, Nashville has plenty to offer in terms of food and drink too. An emerging culinary scene has seen the likes of Henrietta Red (henriettared.com; mains from $12/£9) and Roze Pony (rozepony.com; mains from $19/£14) spring up in recent years.

The cool and quirky Henrietta Red, brainchild of Julia Sullivan, serves up delicious, avant-garde seafood – special mention to the red snapper crudo. Roze Pony, meanwhile, offers brunch and dinner in a light and spacious cafe where the air is rich with inspiration – I spot someone penning lyrics.

Printers Alley Nashville is home to some eclectic and swinging bars.

Across town, beer lovers will delight in Tennessee Brew Works (tnbrew.com; beers from $6.25/£5). This is home brewing writ large – their industrial-style taproom inside an old printing press is the perfect place for an off-Broadway knees-up.

Prefer cider? Then Diskin Cider, Nashville’s first craft cider brewery, is the place to be (diskincider.com; four-taster flight from $15/£11). As well as an eclectic and lovingly-made array of ciders on tap, this space is a linchpin for the community, hosting everything from writers’ nights to drag queen brunches.

Perhaps these queens are kitted out by Andrew Clancey at Any Old Iron (anyoldiron.us). This British designer’s sequin-rich aesthetic is so ostentatious, it’s made his store on Music Row a Nashville destination. Keep an eye peeled for his fabulous facemasks (from $30/£22 + tax).

How to sum up Nashville? A place where the hot-to-trot unironically strut from dive bars to fancy restaurants in cowboy boots and Stetson hats; where acoustic guitar melodies waft out of every doorway; and where the roar of the local football stadium sends the city into a frenzy every weekend.

If you can imagine that, all that’s left is to get yourself to Nashville and discover this swingin’ city for yourself.

How to plan your trip

British Airways (britishairways.com/nashville) flies direct from London Heathrow to Nashville. Prices start from £447 return.

W Nashville (marriott.co.uk/hotels/travel/bnawn-w-nashville)offers rooms from $365/£275 and Grand Hyatt Nashville (hyatt.com/en-US/hotel/tennessee/grand-hyatt-nashville/bnarn) offers rooms from $240/£179.

Go to visitmusiccity.com

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