Little Octopus, Nashville, USA

Its successful year long run as a pop-up restaurant has spurred owners Sarah and Brad Gavigan to finally install Little Octopus in a permanent brick and mortar home. 

Located in the city’s thrumming Gulch neighbourhood, the restaurant’s old school Miami vibe is down to Los Angeles-based outfit, Design, Bitches, who made the most of the nine-metre high ceilings and skylight windows to create a fresh and vibrant space in a sorbet colour palette with swathes of blonde wood and brass and marble accents.

The perfect space then to sample chef Daniel Herget’s Caribbean-inflected menu that focuses on the cuisine from cultures that have impacted the region’s past. From Spain to Portugal, India and Lebanon, expect dishes such as goat curry, but served with gnocchi and radish or clams with shoestring potato and jerk spice. Dishes are meant for sharing, of course, in good company, as one would come to expect in any Tennessee city.