Folk sits at 823 Meridian Street in East Nashville, the more relaxed sibling to chef Philip Krajeck's celebrated Rolf and Daughters. The hook is simple and well executed: a low-intervention wine list set next to naturally leavened, wood-fired pizza in a bright corner room.
The kitchen mills its own flour and ferments the dough before it meets the wood-burning oven, an approach that earned Folk a place on Bon Appétit's list of the 50 best new restaurants and a James Beard semifinalist nod. That care carries straight to the bar, where the wine program is the reason a wine-minded crowd treats this as a destination rather than a pizza stop.
The room reads open and unfussy, with counter seats that put solo drinkers in front of the action. It is the kind of corner that fills with neighbourhood regulars early and turns over to a younger wine crowd as the night runs on. Outdoor seats are the prize on a mild Nashville evening.
The wine list is the headline. It changes constantly and leans natural and small-production, with by-the-glass pours chosen to match the seasonal menu rather than to flatter a fixed list. Ask the staff which low-intervention bottle is pouring well that week, then build a plate around it. Pizzas land in the mid-teens to low twenties, and the vegetable-forward small plates are designed to share. A craft beer list and a short cocktail menu round out the options for anyone not drinking wine.
Go early for a counter seat and a quieter read of the list. Go later if you want the fuller room and a glass of something you will not find at the grocery store. The crowd is East Nashville locals, industry regulars on their nights off, and out-of-towners who tracked the place down after reading the national press.
Reviewers on Tripadvisor and Google return to two points: the quality of the pizza crust and the depth of a wine list that rewards a real conversation with the staff. The pairing instinct that runs through the menu is the through-line, and it is what separates Folk from the city's other pizza rooms.
Who it is for: natural-wine drinkers, couples who want a low-key date with a serious list, and travelers chasing the restaurants that put East Nashville on the national map. Who it is not for: anyone after a loud bar scene or a long spirits program, since the energy here runs warm, food-led, and built around the bottle.
The lineage matters. Krajeck built his name at Rolf and Daughters, and Folk reads as the looser, wine-led counterpart, with the same respect for fermentation and local product carried into a more casual room. That pedigree is why national editors kept the place on their lists well past its opening year.
Getting there puts you in the thick of East Nashville's restaurant row, a short drive from the Five Points hub and walkable from several of the neighbourhood's better-known rooms. It works as a first stop before a longer night or as the whole evening for a couple who came to drink well and eat lightly.
The format rewards curiosity. Because the list turns over so often, the smart move is to trust the staff rather than hunt for a familiar label, and the kitchen's shareable plates are built to stretch a bottle across a table. Solo drinkers do best at the counter, where the pours and the conversation come easiest.
Folk belongs in the Nashville wine conversation, next to the city's other serious by-the-glass rooms. See where it lands in our guide to the best wine bars in Nashville, browse the full Nashville bar guide, and read the wider editorial on the best bars in East Nashville.
