If you want to start exploring all of the greatness bubbling up on Nolensville Pike, Edessa is the best place to start. The Turkish and Kurdish restaurant is located in an unassuming strip mall in Little Kurdistan and the food here puts on a show. Hunks of meat hang from a rack medieval-style, and pillowy bubbles of lavash are thrown right from the oven onto your table. There’s rarely a miss and it’s an elite spot for a group dinner of excellent dips and mountains of meat.
Share everything, starting with the lavash—a thin, pliable flatbread that arrives at the table looking like Kirby. Pop it with a fork and use it, along with pieces of pita, to dig into the various dips and spreads in the appetizer platter. Among them, the city’s greatest baba ganoush and hummus. The juicy kabobs on the mixed grill are more than enough for two people, but a larger group should definitely go in on the kabob festival that comes with apps, salad, soups, kabobs, rice, and baklava for $160. Drinks are BYOB here, so plan accordingly.
Ask for one of the cozy red booths, if one’s available. They comfortably seat four, but you can squeeze six if you’re feeling particularly ambitious. And because so many of the plates here are meant to be shared with a group, it isn’t unusual to find that exact situation happening all around the room. The more lavash, the merrier.
Food Rundown
Fresh Lavash
Make this the first thing you order, because you’ll use it throughout your meal for dipping, wrapping, and sopping up everything. The fun part, though, is popping this massive bubble of bread. A tiny poke with a fork will do it, and then you can watch it deflate into a thin, pliable, earthy sheet of carbs that’s impossible to stop eating.
Signature Appetizer Platter
This platter has all of Edessa’s greatest hits: juicy ezme with chopped tomatoes and peppers, earthy baba ghanoush, rich hummus, tender stuffed grape leaves, lemony tabbouleh, cool and creamy haydari, and thick slices of pita. The platter easily feeds a group of four as a starter.
Mixed Grill Kabob
The mixed grill comes with three different kabobs—chargrilled filet mignon, chicken, adana— along with a lamb chop and a generous heaping of yellow rice and salad. The chicken and Adana are far and away the winners, tender and bursting with flavorful spices. The filet is a bit tough but has a nice earthy seasoning to it.
Baklava
Both the traditional baklava and the Edessa baklava are delightfully sticky. Edessa’s version adds a mix of dried apricots, raisins, and figs to the mix, which adds some nice variety.