Chef Tandy Wilson is a master of meatballs. A staple of Sunday Supper, City House’s are made with the usual suspects — pork, garlic, parsley, milk, breadcrumbs — and a few extra touches. First, the bread crumbs are made from leftover pizza dough, giving them some sourdough tang. Secondly, they meatballs are often more bread than meat, which seems taboo but actually allows them to suck up all the pork fat that comes from the third key touch: They’re made from pork shoulder.

Try them straight-up on Sundays — simmered for hours in tomato sauce, served with olive oil and focaccia — or on pizza if they have it. The pie is covered in rich, smoked mozzarella, and the meatballs give off enough luscious pork fat while cooking that they don’t even sauce the pie. If you think nobody can do meatballs or pizza better than City House, wait until you try them together.

Mama G’s meatballs are exactly the kind your grandma would make — if your grandma had access to Porter Road meat and a coal-fired oven imported from Italy. At Nicky’s, Chef Tony Galzin uses his Nanna Gattone’s recipe, so it’s basically guaranteed to give you the warm-and-fuzzy, comfort-food feeling you crave. They’re supremely satisfying served over fusilli, but true professionals know to order them as an appetizer in order to dip pizza crusts in the leftover sauce.

Those who weren't lucky enough to grow up with a magical Italian grandma still probably have fond memories of meatballs in tomato sauce. Krisi’s at The Original Corner Pub scratches that itch. For as long as many can remember, the menu has touted their “97-year-old family recipe.” Delightfully, that number never changes, and neither do their meatballs. Smothered in sauce and served with Texas toast, they are a very good version of the kind your very non-Italian mom made.

Man cannot exist on meatballs alone, and so he invented subs. Bare Bones makes theirs with lean beef, pork fat, fresh herbs, garlic, parmesan, and milk-soaked bread. They roast and then simmer their meatballs in a marinara-Pomodoro hybrid, made with tomatoes, onion, garlic, and red pepper. They construct the sandwich by slathering garlic mayo on a Charpier’s hoagie, melting provolone over the meatballs, and topping it off with more sauce for a gloriously sloppy, satisfying sandwich.

When Jonathan Waxman opened Adele’s six years ago, it was a go-to for pretty cocktails in an airy, sophisticated atmosphere. Unfortunately, roughly 37,000 of those kinds of places exist in Nashville now, so its simple, seasonal approach means it hasn’t retained its go-to status. However, that also means that the things Adele’s got right day one it still gets right. That includes their roast chicken, crispy potatoes, and their meatballs, served simply with polenta and tomato sauce.

Japanese cooks have always known that meat tastes better on sticks, and meatballs are no exception. The Izakaya-style chicken skewers at Bar Otaku bring some white meat into the proceedings, yet still keep things rich with a dipping sauce of egg yolk and soy. (Two Ten Jack offers a similar, delectable preparation on the East Side.) The showstopper, though, at Bar Otaku is the Wagyu beef skewer served with ponzu sauce and sliced chili. They’re not always on the menu, but if they are, order them. They are a melt-in-your-mouth umami-bomb of the highest order.

One problem people have when making meatballs is it’s a lot of soft-on-soft-on-soft. The 404 Kitchen clears that hurdle by serving their meatballs crisped to a crunchy golden-brown. Like Hathorne, 404 cuts through the richness with a mint pesto and crushed Aleppo pepper, but they finish theirs with a yogurt sauce that gives these a creamy, Mediterranean finish.

Every culture has a different word for meatball. The Mexican variety — pronounced “al-bon-di-gas” — may be the most fun to say, and to eat if you do it at answer. Made from dry-aged beef, bacon and garlic, they’re packed with umami, which means they stand up to punchy finishes like piquant tomato sauce, salty queso fresco, herbaceous chimichurri and crunchy almonds. Tip: Go ahead and ask for extra bread to sop up the zesty leftover sauce.

Ask any self-respecting Italian-American about meatballs and you’ll hear one word: gravy. If a tomato sauce includes meat, it is gravy, not sauce, and it must be simmered for hours on a stove, preferably by someone who can legitimately tell you how it was done “in the Old Country.” Nick Pellegrino comes from that kind of family, and that’s one of the reasons he didn’t serve meatballs at all when Mangia opened.

He was sure he’d hear a chorus of, “They’re good, but they’re not like my grandma’s,” so he held out — until he hired Salvatore Stacccuneddu, a man from the same town in Calabria as Pellegrino’s mother’s family. Stacccuneddu’s meatballs tasted like home to Pellegrino, and he knew they had to go on the menu. The recipe they serve now is a special blend of beef short rib and brisket, roasted in a brick oven and given a long bath in Sunday gravy. You can enjoy them, somewhat ironically, every day of the week except Sunday because, hey, even grandma needs a day off.

Brace yourselves because I’m about to do something no sane person would do, and that’s agree with Guy Fieri. When The Bleached One first infiltrated Nashville, he stopped into Athens for suzukakia, enormous Greek meatballs seasoned with cumin, cinnamon and garlic. He enjoyed them, which you know because his face is now plastered on posters all over the restaurant to prove it. And honestly? So will you. Light, savory and just a little sweet, these meatballs are good enough to make you look past their off-putting, oblong shape and their endorsement by the King of Donkey Sauce to enjoy them.