Meat and Three
Name: Swett’s Restaurant
Location: Nashville,TN
Meal: Fried Chicken, Mac and Cheese, Flat Beans, Corn Bread, and Sweet Tea
Type: Cafeteria
Swett’s is a Nashville institution, it is also a cafeteria. Throughout Nashville, lunch is best defined as a meat plus three meaning you choose a meat and pick your sides. As you walk down the cafeteria line in Swett’s you certainly have lots of great choices in what to match your food with. Swett’s specializes in what the outside world calls “soul food”, what is great about Swett’s is that they simply call it lunch.
The fried chicken was good, well seasoned, a crispy skin, and overall softness to translates to great being very moist. When I travel around I will almost always try a restaurant’s macaroni and cheese if it has even a chance of being homemade. Swett’s is indeed homemade, everything they serve is. I wish I could say the macaroni and cheese was a real winner but it wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong it was good but a little watery, I prefer a little gooey-cheesey-stringiness in my mac and cheese. The beans are wonderful, well cooked yet still firm enough, plus they use ham (probably a ham hock) so the beans wind up with some delicious flavor cooked in. The cornbread in Tennessee isn’t like cornbread I’ve had before. More traditional cornbread is made in a baking pan, this cornbread is made on a skillet like a pancake. Regardless of regional differences the fact remains that Swett’s is a great meal. Family run today and the since the day they opened their doors I encourage you to make your way east Nashville and take in a slice of Swett’s wonderful southern hospitality.
Hey pat
The flat cornbread you speak of is probably like the one in the link above.
It’s called a Johnny Cake as much as I know but the place where I had it called it a Corn Cake.
DT