Begin with the gold standard: Mas Tacos tortilla soup. The impeccable chicken soup — with jalapeno, chipotle, then topped with crispy tortilla strips, fresh corn, and avocado — is a paragon, in Nashville and beyond. If you don’t know it, you either don’t like soup or you just moved here. Also on the daily menu is the zingy pozole verde: a chicken-and-hominy stew flavored with tomatillos, fresh cilantro, and spicy poblanos. It’s bright, citrusy, and satisfying. 

It can be tricky to find their menu online (they don’t have a website), so bookmark this Facebook photo, check Instagram for their daily specials and aguas frescas and call to order. 

With six restaurants under one roof, East Nashville’s Hunters Station is a no-brainer for variety. Vui’s Kitchen serves vegan, beef, and chicken pho, the latter two of which are made with 12-hour bone broth. The chicken pho is a standout, topped with crunchy fried shallots, but be sure to add the available hoisin to give it the needed sweetness.

Across the food hall, find The Grilled Cheeserie’s roasted red pepper and tomato soup alongside their famous creamy old-fashioned take. Made with country-ham stock and heavy cream, it is blessedly unlike the “old-fashioned tomato” most of us grew up on: Campbell’s.

Hunters Station restaurants are open for dine-in with a reduced capacity, or you can order online for pickup, curbside or delivery.

Nestled in a corner of the Nashville Farmers’ Market, Green Asia quietly delivers some of the best deals in town. For $1.25 diners can score a cup of egg drop or hot & sour soup, or shell out a whopping $2 for the wonton. All are excellent additions to their hot buffet, but the hot & sour in particular is something special. Most hot & sour soups lean too heavily on being spicy or sweet; Green Asia does neither, opting instead for a rich, balanced, eggy broth full of depth, umami, and a little bit of heat.

Green Asia is open from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. for takeout every day except Monday. 

The Arcade is stealthily a soup destination — if you know where to look. Ajora Kitchen doesn’t call anything “soup” per se, but many of their Ethiopian dishes scratch that itch, and you can order via GrubHub for delivery on weekdays.

Soup seekers can also stop into Varallo’s Restaurant for chili — the family’s been serving it for more than 110 years — in addition to ordering via Postmates or GrubHub.

Red Perch also serves made-from-scratch clam chowder that’s arguably the best in the city (The top-secret ingredient: bacon.) as well as unusual soup specials from time to time, such as the shrimp congee with Chinese sausage, fresh ginger, and fried garlic. Order pickup or delivery from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.

Bare Bones Butcher is already legendary for their decadent sandwiches, but they also apply their made-from-scratch expertise to chili. Get their all-beef, no-bean chili as a side for outdoor dining or grab a quart for home from the case at The Nations shop. Made with beef shank and cooked low and slow, it’s seasoned with the spice blend they use to make andouille sausage.

With the most comprehensive ramen menu in Nashville, the hits at Otaku Ramen (Tennessee Tonkotsu, Spicy Miso) are so beloved that people often forget to try something new. Let this serve as a reminder to do just that, starting with the Monster Style. The behemoth starts with luscious pork bone broth and toothsome noodles, which are then topped with pork belly, ground pork and ground chicken. The bowl is finished with tart pickled ginger, fresh scallions, and a staple soy-marinated egg. It is salty, savory, over-the-top comfort food at its finest. 

Order Otaku for delivery or pick it up on the west side, east side or in The Gulch, the latter of which also offers socially distanced dine-in. 

On their menu, Broadway Brewhouse claims fame for two things: bushwhackers and soup. If you’ve had their singular ‘whacker, you know their soup must be strong to share the masthead, and indeed it is. Every day they serve Mojo Gumbo, and crawfish etouffee (which is not technically soup but totally is — served over rice with piquant, peppery gravy). This is one place, though, where you should always ask about the soups of the day, which are typically some combination of cream, seafood and spice. 

Pick up from their Midtown location or get it delivered within a limited radius of downtown. 

Nashville’s pho scene is stacked. Between VN Pho & Deli, Miss Saigon and Kien Giang, everyone has their spot — and that’s just one block of Charlotte Pike. That can make us skeptical of newer players, but we needn’t be in the case of West Nashville’s Pho T & N. With over 15 kinds of soup on the menu, it’s a solid choice if in the mood for pho, but want to try something new. To wit: the Bo Kho, a Vietnamese soup of stewed beef with carrot and onion chunks, served over rice noodles or with a baguette. It’s one part pho, one part veggie-beef soup — all comfort food. 

Dine in, order it to-go or get it delivered.

If there’s a cardinal sin of matzo ball soup-making, it’s under-seasoned matzo balls. Lots of people get the broth right only to whiff on that; but not Proper Bagel. The matzo balls have an earthy, savory flavor, so when they soak up the chicken broth, it basically creates Thanksgiving dinner in a bowl. They also make the nontraditional call to add noodles, meaning this can pull double-duty as chicken noodle soup, in sickness and in health.

Dine-in, order it to-go, or get it delivered.

There is no shortage of great onion soup in Nashville. All the “cafés” do French onions well — Eastland, Germantown, Park — but Porta Via takes a different tack, and that’s why it’s worth trying. Their Tuscan creamy onion soup has all the satisfying things you want from French onion — beefy broth, caramelized onions — but instead of broiling cheese on top for richness, they mix in cream, which means every bite is equally roast-y, salty, and succulent.

Dine-in, order it to-go, or get it delivered.

You know a place is good if it gets you to do two things: navigate weird operating hours and find parking in 12South. Taqueria del Sol can do both on the strength of its soup menu alone. Shrimp corn chowder is good if a little sweet, a beef chili is robust and comforting, but it’s the pork green chili that keeps people coming back. The fiery, creamy soup is spicy, addictive, and nearly solid at room temperature — which is how you know it’s made with the good stuff — pork fat. It’s so rich, in fact, that you may want to consider ordering a side of turnip greens — so broth-y they’re nearly a soup in their own right — and mixing the two. It’s a stellar combination for those who aren’t afraid to get weird with it in public. For those who prefer to keep their couth, order it online for pickup or get it delivered.

There’s nothing more glorious than cheese soup — ordering it means you’re throwing in the towel on that diet for the day, and that’s where great meals start. Berry Hill diners have been doing just that for over 20 years at the Yellow Porch with their famous celery-blue cheese soup. Made with nearly every dairy product there is — cream, milk, cream cheese, blue cheese — it is downright diabolical, setting off all the same sensors in your brain that a hot wing would. Sure, they throw in some celery and onion for good measure, but let’s be honest: That’s not why anyone’s here.

Yellow Porch offers dine-in service at 50 percent capacity, as well as curbside pickup and limited delivery

Not counting the airport, Nashville is down to one Noshville, and that’s a shame for many reasons. A big one is that it’s harder to get your hands on their satisfying soups. The Green Hills location is still alive and kicking, however, and still a source for a piping-hot bowl of creamy tomato-dill, matzo ball, or chicken soup with noodles. (That phrasing is not accidental — that soup is, first and foremost, about the rich, clear chicken broth.) But they may be most famous for their sweet & sour cabbage soup. Made with beef brisket, crushed tomatoes, and brown sugar, it’s a little bit Reuben sandwich, a little bit French onion soup, and a lot of tangy goodness.

Dine in, call for pick-up, or order delivery via DoorDash.