Nashville Food Friday: Wild Hare

Last weekend I got together with two of my favorite ladies and we decided to go out to "dine." I guess adults "dine" and children "eat." We wanted to be fancy. A friend suggested Wild Hare and since I had never been, I promptly agreed. I tried some of their samples at Music City Eats (which didn't wow me), so I was interested to see what the full restaurant was like.

First off, the decor is just not good. The whole place looks like it was cobbled together with plywood and duck tape. The floor was uneven and sloped in locations. The ceiling was low and it made me feel like this was a restaurant in a high school student's basement rather than a real adult establishment. Everything about the decor is just plain sloppy which makes this immediately not the place you would take a date or your parents.

We started off with cocktails. I chose the Jack Rabbit Manhattan with Maker's, raspberry liqueur, sweet vermouth, cherry and orange. What I got was about 90% ice. Traditional Manhattans HAVE NO ICE in them. The drink is supposed to be stirred in ice and then strained into a martini glass. What I got was a bastard version of a Manhattan served in a juice glass. My friend ordered the Bite the Bulleit which contained Bulliet bourbon, house-made ginger beer and orange simple syrup. What she got was something that tasted too strongly of ginger to actually imbibe. She tried to finish it, but about halfway through the drink, she just pushed it aside. My other friend received a drink different than the one she ordered and was just too tired to return it, so she drank it anyway. I wouldn't recommend ordering any cocktails here. Save your money and your taste buds.

For our appetizer we went with the fried calamari. It was standard bar-style fire calamari. I did like that it contained the tentacles because that's my favorite part of the squid. I just couldn't shake the feeling that these weren't fresh, but frozen and flash-fried. I could be wrong, but the breading was just a little too uniform and the flavor could have been more pronounced if it was freshly salted and seasoned. The sauce was pretty bland (I prefer something picante with calamari) but wasn't offensive.

For dinner we opted to order two pizzas and split them. The pizzas are really big and between the three of us we each had at least two slices to take home at the end of the night. One of their pizzas could be shared between two people, no problem. My first choice (which I was able to talk the ladies into getting) was the fig and prosciutto pizza. It was served with mozzarella and wilted arugula on top. Gosh this pizza was really good! The fig was generously spread all over the bottom of the base and every bite had the delicious combination of sweet fig, salty prosciutto and peppery arugula. This pizza was the winner for me and I would make a return trip just for it!

Our second pizza was the Moroccan, which featured a Moroccan spice blend, roasted red peppers, mozzarella and curry chicken. This pizza was packed full of flavor and I especially loved the spice blend they used. Tons of mozzarella made this an uber-cheesy pizza which is always a good thing in my book. The chicken surprisingly was quite moist, though I feel this pizza would be excellent without it (vegetarians should order this one without the chicken). I don't believe I've ever had a Moroccan pizza before, so I like that I got to try something new-to-me.


Overall, Wild Hare was hit or miss. The pizzas were stellar but I honestly couldn't find anything else on the menu that I wanted to order. The cocktails are a no go. If you feel like drinking, stick with bottled beer here. The decor is sloppy and while our waitress messed up a drink order, she was overall attentive and polite. I think I'll come back on the rare occasion that I just need a Moroccan pizza ASAP.