" Clockwise, starting at the back: macaroni & cheese, collard greens, fried corn, stewed apples."
Michael Stern
"Many customers forgo a main course altogether at Sylvan Park and make a meal of four different vegetables. Clockwise, from the top, these are turnip greens, mashed turnips, glazed apples, and macaroni and cheese. Yes, in the south, mac & cheese IS a vegetable!"
Michael Stern
" The stewed-apple side dish is sweet and spicy, very much like apple pie without a crust."
Michael Stern
"People were widely split on the caramel pie. Some adored it, others found it cloying. The filling tastes something like a softer version of Kraft Caramels. Thick, sticky, and very, very, sweet. (Franklin Road location)"
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle
" Chess pie is the simplest possible dessert, and one of the best: sweet as candy, rich as sin. This piece was served warm. Its top crust was as brittle as a sugar cookie."
Michael Stern
"A mid-south classic: banana pudding with crumbled vanilla wafers and streaks of meringue along with bananas in the custard."
Michael Stern
" The collards are dense, heavy, and full-flavored. Of course, vinegar peppers are arrayed on the table for spicing them up."
Michael Stern
" Sylvan Park meringue pies are legendary. Here's coconut cream, a magnificent balance of ethereal meringue and silky custard."
Michael Stern
"The section of the partitioned plate holding the pole beans was one of the highlights of the entire tour! These were by far the most luscious, meatiest tasting beans imaginable. (Franklin Road location)"
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle
"Fried okra. Bar food. (Franklin Road location)"
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle
" You get cornbread muffins and/or dinner rolls with every meal. We like one of each. The muffin is dense, rugged-textured, and buttermilk-rich; the roll is featherweight."
Michael Stern
"For mopping juices of a pork chop, nothing beats a Sylvan Park dinner roll (left). We like to crumble the moist, sweet cornbread muffin over turnip greens."
Michael Stern
"Catfish, green beans, potato salad, apples, corn bread."
Marc
"There is a meditative ambience in the Sylvan Park dining room despite the drone of the cooling equipment and the lack of decorative frills. For those who love genuine Southern food, it is a near-religious experience."
Michael Stern
" If you have time for only one meat-and-three meal in Nashville, this is the place. "
Michael Stern
" There's no charm whatsoever to the exterior of the cinderblock bunker that is Sylvan Park. But Nashville cognoscenti know it as one of the local-food beacons. Meat-and-Three transcendent."
Michael Stern
"The original Sylvan Park, on Murphy Road, serves breakfast Wednesday through Saturday. Here's a couple of slabs of fried bologna, sunnyside eggs, biscuits, grits, and fried potatoes."
Michael Stern
Sylvan Park is a simple little dining room that is one of Nashville’s great plate lunch restaurants. Choices of entrée include slices of fried Tennessee ham, barbecued chicken, and breaded pork chops; and the roster of side dishes, served in little bowls and on thick, unbreakable partitioned plates, is unforgettable. Every day, there are at least a dozen from which to choose, including definitive turnip greens and shockingly sweet stewed apples.
