Bar Continental
Nashville
2/28/24
I wondered about the man rummaging through records in the corner as the DJ fussed with the turntables. He was spinning some relatively unengaging modern electronic music. It was almost 10 p.m., the scheduled end of Blue Note Records night at Bar Continental, and the experience was underwhelming thus far. The music was too quiet and frankly, too boring for the hi-fi sound systems that the bar’s concept was based around to be appreciated. But just as the DJ was packing up the records he’d brought from home — despite the bar’s in-house collection of over 5,000 records — and I was ready to chalk the bar up to an unrealized good idea, the mystery man in question took over, and the space came alive.
A quick Google image search showed that this inconspicuous man was none other than the bar’s owner, Sean Brock, one of Nashville’s top restaurateurs. The celebrity chef and champion of Appalachian cuisine as high art rebranded his flagship restaurant, the Continental, as Bar Continental in the fall of 2023. Brock took the business, located in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown Nashville, from a tribute to elevated mid-century hotel dining to a listening room bar inspired by the Japanese kissa. Now, on any given night, patrons can sip a cocktail and order gourmet bar food while experiencing the bar’s extensive vinyl collection through three different hi-fi sound systems.
The Japanese kissa, for those who don’t know, became popular in post-war Japan as a means of circumventing the high price of imported vinyl. A kissa serves beverages — earlier in its history just tea, but evolving over time to cocktails — and plays jazz records for patrons. Some even prohibit talking. With a much deeper history than there is room for here, the kissa was and is a means of elevating the recorded music listening experience beyond what the average person can create at home. At Bar Continental, the collection of vintage and new hi-fi audio gear certainly achieves this, when the right person is at the helm.
Despite it being a quiet night, I couldn’t initially snag a seat at the primary bar where the turntables were located, so I sat next to what I now know to be a pair of vintage Altec Voice of the Theatre speakers. As I mentioned, at this point in the evening I was so far uninspired by the DJ’s choices, but even so, the sound between the different speaker systems could have benefitted from a little more isolation to really take in both the records and the sounds of the individual systems. It felt a bit muddy. I moved to the bar as soon as I could, however, and the sound experience immediately became more immersive and tactile, which is what you want when you go to a bar that is known as a listening room. Especially once Brock took over the music, sounds leaped from one corner of the room to the other. The high-hat of the drum kit felt like it was physically sizzling in your ears, and the sensory experience potential was unlocked.
I ordered two cocktails (the Brooklyn and the Bee’s Knees) and the Wednesday night food special ($10 lemon pepper chicken wings) and was thoroughly impressed with all of it. The Bee’s Knee’s cocktail was listed as “Ford’s, matcha, black sesame, honey, and citrus.” Each ingredient carried its weight while blending with the others, resulting in a creamy drink that was bitter and grounded with a gentle sweetness. The Brooklyn was a twist on a Manhattan with some additional spice, and the lemon pepper chicken wings were some of the best I’ve had. Served with house ranch, fresh lemon, and celery, the wings were tangy and bright, perfectly crisp without being greasy.
The friend I was with mentioned a famous Alan Parsons quote: “Audiophiles don’t use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment.” I appreciate the criticism there and am generally irked by gearheads. However, there’s a world where both things can be true, and the music and the system work together to simulate the more physical experience of a live show with the added advantage of someone having specifically designed the sound experience they want you to have. In a world where most of us, at best, experience recorded music through earbuds or a Bluetooth speaker ordered on Amazon, the opportunity to feel a speaker move air and come alive offers something of a bygone era and a new perspective on sound.
