A Gastronomic Tour of Chattanooga, Tennessee
We ate and drank our way across Lookout City
This weekend my wife Tiff and I dropped the kids off with my mother and drove across the state line to Chattanooga. We had enough points accrued from our months-long hotel stay last year to cover a whole weekend, and we opted for a closer locale to maximize our time away as well as our budget. Tiff had flagged enough places in the city that she had been wanting to go for a while, so we decided to try it out. I had only ever gone as a kid when my family went to the Tennessee Aquarium (where, in an early instance of my facility with the opposite sex I blushed and hid when a girl in the gift shop told me I looked “like that boy from Free Willy. I thought he was cute.”). I was pleasantly surprised upon my return to see that it’s one of those small cities where there is a youthful population in large enough numbers to have built out an established and lovely food and beverage scene. Since we pretty much spent the whole weekend indulging in the afore-mentioned food and drink, I’ll just run down where we went and what we got.
Like any road trip where it’s even remotely an option, our first stop was Buc-ee’s. Tiff got her usual - the brisket sandwich - and I bought a breakfast taco for the ride and something called an Overbite, which is basically a hockey puck made of chocolate and peanut butter, and some jerky for the hotel room.
Tiff was participating in a virtual panel on cancer and motherhood the Friday we got in, so while she set up for that I posted up in The Hot Chocolatier, a cafe next to our hotel that specialized in deserts and hot chocolate, to do some writing and reading. I was already getting a slice of chocolate-dipped strawberry cake (fantastic), so decided to opt for a coffee so as to not go over my monthly sugar allotment in one sitting.
After her panel we each had a celebratory flight of beers at TailGate brewery, where my favorites were the Oat Lager and the Cereal Golden Ale. We had a 5:00 dinner reservation at Calliope, but because we were hungry and didn’t have enough time to do anything else before, we decided to show up at 4:00 to see if they could accommodate us. Luckily they could, so we were sat in a largely empty restaurant for what felt almost like a private dinner.
Calliope is a restaurant that specializes in Levantine cuisine and serves mostly small plates, so we decided to get a wide variety of options. We started with drinks - I got the Smoke on the River (scotch washed with duck fat, averna, apple brandy, smoked with applewood chips) and it was unlike anything I’ve ever tasted. The meal itself is one of the best we’ve had in recent memory, perhaps ever. Highlights were the chicken shawarma hummus, the fattoush (ember roasted beets, pickled radish, peanuts, herbed goat cheese), and the gulf shrimp served in a sauce of moroccan spices, saffron, garlic, and lemon. I would have gladly bought this sauce by the bottle. I ordered extra pita to sop up this sauce, and I almost asked for a straw to drink what I couldn’t get off of the plate.
The next morning we had breakfast at The Daily Ration, where Tiff had some pleasingly crispy, not-too-sweet blueberry pancakes with bourbon maple syrup and I had a BLPT (bacon, lettuce, pimento cheese, and bacon) on local sourdough. After a (not) brief (enough) drive to the nearest used bookstore we could find, we came back to the downtown area for lunch at Uncle Larry’s, who makes some of the best fried catfish we’ve ever had. My biggest regret of the trip was opting for the shrimp (which was still incredible) rather than the fish, but Tiff very generously let me have some of hers. The lemon pepper fish fry was especially delicious.
In talking with our server the night before at Calliope about why we were in town and what our plans were, he recommended the mojito at State of Confusion, made with sugar cane pressed in-house. This spot ended up being within walking distance from our hotel, so we walked over there (taking a detour through the Chattanooga Choo Choo building) for a drink and a free piece of birthday cake courtesy of the party at the table next to us.
Walking back to the hotel, we happened to pass by Valkyrie Axe Throwing and decided to go in for a session on a whim. We had been once before back home, shortly before our lives fell somewhat apart last year, and it felt like a sign since part of what we were in town celebrating was being on the other side of all that. For whatever reason, we also found ourselves performing significantly better this time - perhaps because this venue was less about a variety of structured games and simply about throwing. A beautiful detour.
We spent some time resting at our hotel with a plate of truffle fries (a tradition whenever we travel) before heading out for that night’s destination - a local speakeasy named Unknown Caller. Tiff had found the bar online and was excited because to enter you had to step into a vintage phone booth, pick up the receiver, and speak a password. We were a little bummed to see that this method of admittance had changed, but it was still an experience worthy of the name: upon entering a heavy iron door, you walk down a short hallway where you have to punch a secret code into a key pad and wait to see if you will be allowed inside. We were, and were struck immediately by the vibe and decor once we got inside.
An entire world unto itself, the space is beautifully and intentionally curated and the drinks are some of the best and most creative we’ve ever had. I had the Toronto and the Milf and Cookies, and Tiffany finished the night with Pump up the Yams, an ube and pisco cocktail that she’s been talking about ever since. We will absolutely come back up just for this place - even if it’s just for a night, or even a few hours!
We wrapped up our trip with a stop at Honey Seed - who specializes in hand-rolled Montreal-style bagels - for breakfast on the way home. We made sure to get enough to fill us up and also some extra for the road.
-cs