Whether you’re researching your first trip to Nashville or you’ve visited a thousand times, chances are you’ve heard about Nashville Hot Chicken. A local favorite-turned-national obsession, Nashville Hot Chicken — if done correctly — will scorch and satiate your taste buds with a bold and balanced mix of heat and flavor.

Most locals will happily indulge you in a debate over their favorite spot in town, and whose cayenne kick is the spiciest. For those not yet baptized by fire: Proper conversational etiquette regarding Nashville Hot Chicken typically follows a formula. First, you’ll mention your preferred local institution, followed by the heat level you order. This allows you to size up your comrades instantly, both in their selection and tolerance.

While opinions on whose bird is best will differ, one thing is consistent: You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone that orders the hottest chicken at Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, a beloved local institution and the pioneer of Nashville Hot Chicken almost a century ago. The same tends to go for the peak-hot “Shut the Cluck Up” at Hattie B’s, a comparative newcomer and a favorite amongst tourists and locals alike.

If you’ve been to Nashville before and have already hit up the regular spots, or if a full meal’s worth of Hot Chicken feels like biting off a bit more than you can chew at the moment, you can still find ways to get surprised and satisfied by Nashville’s trademark dish. Here are six of our favorite innovative, inspired Nashville Hot Chicken dishes, from restaurants all across the city:

Pimento Cheese is a culinary institution in the South, sitting on a pedestal in between sweet tea and cornbread. Ask anyone who grew up below the Mason-Dixon line, and they’ll share memories of their grandma combining grated cheddar, a heap of mayonnaise and a jar of pimentos into a popular potluck dip.

These days, Nashville chefs are elevating pimento cheese with better cheeses, less mayo and often smoked spices, making it a can’t-miss component of local menus. With National Cheese Lover’s Day coming up on January 20, it felt like a fitting time to point toward some of Nashville’s best takes on this Southern staple. Whether atop a burger, adorning a hot dog or stuffed inside a sandwich or beignet, these seven Nashville dishes do pimento cheese right.

In 2019, brunch is as pervasive on Nashville’s culinary landscape as bachelorettes are on Broadway. And done right, brunch in Nashville is an activity, not a meal — an action verb usually posed in present tense.

In a city where brunch has become ubiquitous, it can be easy to drown in the sea of possibilities — the best brunches Nashville has to offer can range from a hole-in-the-wall dive in East Nashville (honorable mention, Dino’s) to the city’s ritziest, “see and be seen” rooftop restaurants in The Gulch (looking at you, L.A. Jackson), and everything in between.

To eliminate the guesswork, we’ve rounded up a list of some of the best brunch spots in Nashville, and included some brunch dishes you can’t go wrong with.