My husband had been working extra hours and seeing emergency patients the past few weekends, so I decided that I would plan us a last-minute date night to Nashville. We could spend quality time together, and he could get away to relax and refocus.
I called my favorite hotel, Omni Nashville, where my friend Mark McDonald is Head of Hospitality. Mark always does the absolute best job of finding us a room, and the staff is always impeccable with the best southern hospitality. We often eat dinner at Bob’s Steakhouse inside the Omni, and then have breakfast the following morning at Kitchen Notes, where my kids love to eat!
This time, I made us reservations at a restaurant I had been to, but my husband had yet to try, called Gray & Dudley. It’s located inside the 21C Museum Hotel in downtown Nashville, nestled in the back of the art studio and gallery. One of the fun features of this restaurant is a blue penguin that is placed at your dinner table sometime throughout the meal, and you are to name the penguin. (We named it “JAG” to represent our children-John Crewe, Anna Berkley & Greene. Somehow as much as we love getting away just the two of us for a date night, we still end up talking about our children most of the time.
After our date night dinner, one of my girlfriends from Nashville was celebrating her birthday and invited us to join them at Sunda. This restaurant is Asian -inspired and offers unique sushi in the Gulch area of Nashville.
The next morning we slept in and ordered coffee to the room while we watched college football game day. We enjoyed the hotel services until checkout time.
My husband and I started a tradition a few years back- I always buy a book while we’re on a date night and we take turns writing to one another. We found that this would be a neat collection in our library to hand down to our children and grandchildren. We include hand-written love letters in the books, descriptions of our date night, and details about that time in our lives. My husband knew I had wanted the latest Reese Witherspoon book, Whiskey In a Teacup, so after hotel check out, we headed straight to Draper James to snatch a copy!
Down the street from Draper James is one of our favorite lunch spots in Nashville called Bartaco. This restaurant is located in the 12 South area and has fun coastal decor and incredible outdoor patio seating.
We are staying away from desserts while we try the keto diet, but that did not stop us from visiting Nashville’s finest dessert locations - The famous Christie Cookie Company is located in the same area of 12 South. We stopped in to purchase my in-laws a large Nashville tin filled with all of their most popular cookies. We always like to bring back a treat for whomever is taking care of our babies when we travel.
Next stop was for treats for the kids and our dental staff- we chose my personal favorite, Five Daughters Bakery. We selected a dozen different types of their famous 100 Layer Doughnut as a treat for our sweet dental staff. We also picked out a box of our children’s favorites to bring back for them to enjoy for breakfast the next morning.
Traveling with LG never gets old- we laugh, we relax, and every time, we say “Nashville is Always a Good Idea!”
