Blacksmith's Bistro & Bar

We have held off on making a recommendation on this place which has been open about a year now because of some initial concerns about the service on our first 3 visits. However, the food has always been solid and last night's dinner puts it on the short list of must do Chattanooga restaurants.

Casual, service the last 3 visits has been fine, and they seem to have settled on a $10 corkage fee.

The fall menu has kicked it up into the top echelon. Never before have we seen Roasted bone marrow (with parsley and shallots) on any menu in Chattanooga. The last time we had bone marrow, was at Rathbun's in Atlanta, and this easily surpassed Kevin Rathbun's delicious version. There were sweetbreads last night with perfectly done asparagus, and a sage brown butter sauce with balsamic. There was Quail with arugula pears and cherry sauce. There were black bean cakes with fried greeen tomatoes pimento cheese and booyah sauce. There were broiled oysters with blacksmith's butter. And this was just on the appetizer menu.

We tried a solid version of pasta with bolognese sauce. There was a bacon macaroni and cheese which had Alan Benton's superb Madisonville, TN bacon (which we had to travel to Momofuku in NYC to discover several years ago even though its made 1 hour from Chattanooga). On prior visits we've enjoyed the ravioli with sage brown butter sauce and a superb romesco sauce that last night was with salmon.

Highly Recommended.

Thi