AVO

Chef-Driven Kitchen. Plant-Forward Menu. AVO takes the food people already crave and rebuilds it from plants until what is missing stops mattering. The work starts in the kitchen, where cheeses, sauces, dressings, and familiar favorites are built from the ground up with vegetables, nuts, seeds, and mushrooms. Start with the Kimchi Spring Rolls. Cashew pâté, kimchi, and peanut sauce have made them one of the dishes people order before everybody else has opened a menu. Then come the OG Nachos, layered with cauliflower-walnut chorizo, coconut queso, guacamole, salsa, and cashew sour cream. Cauliflower wings leave the fryer crisp and ready for gochujang, Buffalo, or garlic parm. The Kale Caesar gets its richness from walnut dressing and cashew parm, with fried chickpeas for crunch. Cacio e Pepe comes glossy with creamy black pepper sauce, smoked mushroom, and more cashew parm. Burgers arrive with the same care, right down to beet ketchup. Nothing on the plate is there to stand in for something else. The vegetables have to earn the dish on flavor. That makes AVO work especially well for the table that usually has to negotiate dinner. The vegan can read the whole menu. The friend who came along can order wings, a burger, and a cocktail. A family with different diets can order without turning the meal into a conversation about restrictions. Lunch can be quick. Grab a burger and Kale Caesar between meetings and get back to the day. Happy hour can start with cauliflower wings and end with another round. Dinner can stretch over Cacio e Pepe, nachos, and the Frozen Avocado Margarita, blended with avocado, lime, and tequila into the pale green drink that has been part of AVO since the early years. The room works the same way. No white-tablecloth formality. No pressure to make the night into more than it needs to be. Come for a working lunch, a birthday, visiting family, an eight-top friend dinner, or the first meal of a Nashville weekend. Service meets the table where it is. Guests with allergies or dietary needs can ask questions without making dinner into a production, and the team is used to helping people find what works for them. AVO has been part of Nashville since 2015 and has grown from its original OneC1ty shipping-container home into its permanent space beneath the Element Hotel. The food has grown with it, but the idea is still simple: cook carefully, make plants do the work, and give everybody at the table something they actually want to eat. Come hungry. Stay awhile. Reserve your table at AVO. LARGE PARTY RESERVATION of parties 13+ Please email annie@eatavo.com