It’s shockingly easy to make a bad meatball. For a food that typically has four ingredients — meat, dairy, bread, seasoning — people sure have gotten creative with ways to screw it up.
Too much bread, too little salt, too long stewed in “house-made sauce” that’s really just a can of tomatoes and too much garlic powder. All are on display in Nashville.
Thankfully, for every lackluster, overcooked, under-seasoned meatball, there are a handful of folks doing it right.
Some keep it classic, with old-school Italian meatballs like mom used to make. Others draw inspiration from Mexico, Spain, France or Greece. Heck, there’s even a vegan meatball if you’re the kind of masochist who clicked on this article with the express purpose of getting furious and raging out in the comments. And, hey, you’re welcome here, too. If there’s one thing Music City’s meatballs can teach us, it’s that all approaches — to meat and to life — are welcome.
Here are 13 places in Nashville with meatballs worth trying.