Restaurants

Memphis is famous for its ribs and other pork barbecue, and although you’ll find dozens of ’cue restaurants, they’re not the only culinary show in town.

The city boasts some outstanding restaurants with national reputations, such as Erling Jensen, where the Danish-born chef of the same name turns out remarkable dishes. In short, you’ll find a remarkable number of good restaurants for a city this size, and new ones are opening every year. You’ll find that Memphians are doggedly devoted to southern home cooking, particularly at midday. Plate lunches and meat-and-threes are the names you’ll hear, as lunch restaurants all over the city serve up fried chicken, sweet tea, corn bread, and every kind of vegetable (and even things that aren’t vegetables, since in the South macaroni and cheese, cottage cheese, and congealed salad are included on the veggie menu). Every restaurant seems to have some variation on the meat-and-threes at lunch, even if the place isn’t really known for home cooking. (And yes, some do serve this fare for dinner.) Memphis, like other cities, is also rich in ethnic restaurants, from authentic Mexican and Indian to Thai and Vietnamese. You’ll find lots of Italian restaurants, too, some of them well-loved institutions that have been operated 20 years or more by local families of Italian descent.

We would be remiss, however, if we didn’t say a little more about barbecue. Memphis has evolved into the pork barbecue capital of the world, and if you don’t believe it, check out the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest that takes place here every May (see the Annual Events chapter for more details). During barbecue-fest weekend, some 300 cooking teams set up operations at Tom Lee Park as they compete for prizes on barbecued pork ribs, whole hog, and pork shoulder. The city has great barbecue restaurants, so be sure to sample some barbecue ribs (wet or dry) and a savory pork-shoulder sandwich during your stay. (See the Close-up on barbecue in this chapter for more information.)

Finally, if you prefer the familiar, you’ll find every kind of chain restaurant in Memphis. Fast-food options include Wendy’s, Papa John’s, and many, many more. Other chain restaurants include Outback Steakhouse, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze, and Applebee’s. On the more upscale end, there’s Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Benihana. By the way, Memphis restaurants are quite used to accommodating low-carb dieters, so speak up if you need to substitute vegetables or other foods for starchy and sugary dishes.

The listings in this chapter focus mainly on locally owned restaurants and are organized according to type of cuisine. Within each section we list the restaurants in alphabetical order. Within each type of cuisine, you’ll generally find lots of variety in the decor, location, and size of the restaurants. The ambience, too, can vary quite a bit, ranging from elegant to casual, so you’ll find beautiful showplaces as well as places that might be described as holes in the wall.