Sweet Treats and Savory Eats: Experience Knoxville’s Culinary Boom

Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop, one of the best bakeries in Knoxville, gives you an authentic taste of Southern tradition with their delicious pies. The gluten-friendly bakery offers must have flavors like Southern custard (buttermilk), Granny's apple pie, rich and thick chocolate cream and tart key lime pies.  Other sweet treats include thumbprint shortbread cookies, pecan shortbread cloud cookies, and pie a la mode - a mini pie with a scoop of ice cream.

• Seasonal highlights: Seasonal favorites include pumpkin-flavored sweet treats, lemon icebox pie and more that are available throughout the year.
   
• Accessibility: Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop is wheelchair accessible.
   
• Parking: There is free parking in front of the bakery.

Locals and travelers alike go wild for Wild Love Bakehouse and their handmade pastries full of meticulously sourced local ingredients such as hand-picked and in-season berries, eggs from Tickiwoo Farms and dairy from Cruze Farms. Stop in for lunch as well for scratch-made soups, potpies and breads.

• Seasonal highlights: At Wild Love, the early bird gets the perfect, buttery croissants, which often sell out during the breakfast rush.
   
• Parking information: There is free parking in front of the bakery.

One of the best places to get sweet treats near downtown Knoxville, head to Magpies Bakery where you can get a taste of freshly baked desserts. Lick your fingers clean after trying the candy bar brownies, cheesecake, cookies, chocolate chip sandwiches, pies and cakes. Try Kelsea Ballerine's favorite sweet treat, the lemon thumbprint cookies, are a famous dessert from Magpies.

• Seasonal highlights: Seasonal pies include grasshopper, strawberry rhubarb, peach, pumpkin, winterberry and almond joyous. Cheesecake flavors offered in January-March are chocolate raspberry and oreo; in April-August, try the cookie monster, strawberry and oreo flavors; September-November features caramel toffee and pumpkin flavors and December brings peppermint bark and chocolate raspberry cheesecake flavors. Special cupcake flavors include pink champagne and lucky charms.
   
• Parking: Street parking is available as well as a paid lot. Scan the QR code on the parking sign and you'll receive a promo code from Magpies Bakery for 30 minutes of free parking.
   
• Accessibility: Magpies Bakery has a wheelchair accessible entrance and parking.

Experience the delicious desserts from Knoxville's first Asian bakery, Girls Gotta Eat Good. Owned by Filipina-American Jessica Car, you can find her baked goods at pop-ups, the farmers market and conveniently online. Savor ube and white chocolate scones, reyna rolls (ube cinnamon rolls topped with cinnamon and brown sugar), matcha and white chocolate cookies, peaches and cream mochi cake and more.

In the kitchen at J.C. Holdway, the wood-fire grill takes center stage - you can see it burning behind the bar. Using it to create his Appalachian-inspired, farm to table Knoxville dishes, local Chef Joseph Lenn converts comfort classic plates into an elevated culinary experience.  Chef Lenn cooked alongside Sean Brock in Nashville’s Capital Grill before becoming executive chef at the Barn Restaurant at Blackberry Farm, where he won the prestigious James Beard Award for Best Chef Southeast in 2013. In 2015, Lenn opened J.C. Holdway, named after his late uncle Joseph Charles Holdway.

• Seasonal highlights: The a la carte menu is printed daily and subject to change based on seasonal availability. The Chef's Classics Menu is crafted seasonally. Individual ingredients of dishes may change to reflect the freshest offerings from local farms and purveyors.
   
• Parking: Convenient parking is available at Market Square, Locust Street, and Walnut Street.
   
• Accessibility: J.C. Holdway is wheelchair-accessible.

The French Market Creperie, located near downtown Knoxville's center, is known for having world-class crepes. They also offer croissant and baguette sandwiches, soups and brie, and to truly round out the French Market experience, they brew Europe’s most popular coffee and espresso, LaVazza. 

• Seasonal highlights: The versatile crepes can be sweet and savory treats, filled with bacon and eggs, smoked salmon, spinach and tomato. Crepes that are sweet treats include fillings with strawberries and cream, Nutella, caramel, cinnamon and sugar.
   
• Parking: There are paid lots, garages and street parking close to French Market Creperie.
   
• Accessibility: The French Market Creperie is wheelchair accessible and ADA compliant.

Kaizen is a Japanese word often translated literally “change for the better,” but most often interpreted as a philosophy summed up by the phrase “continual improvement,” applied here by Executive Chef and owner Jesse Newmister. Kaizen embraces the izakaya restaurant model, most easily described as a Japanese tapas-pub. Everything on the menu feels and tastes light, crisp and fresh, with a lot of fresh herbs - even the fried dishes.

• Seasonal highlights: All manner and method of Asian cuisine makes up this oft-rotating menu - from Thai to Szechuan and all else that may inspire and inform Chef Newmister. There is the Nashville bun, the chef’s take on Nashville hot chicken, and the Thai sausage bun, which has a delicate peanut sauce. 
   
• Parking: A large paid public parking lot is located across the street from Kaizen. ADA accessible parking spaces are available.
   
• Accessibility: Kaizen is wheelchair-accessible with a step-free entrance and wheelchair-accessible restrooms.

At the forefront of Knoxville’s meticulously and sustainably-sourced menus, chef and owner Drew McDonald has created an almost purely scratch-made kitchen. Plaid Apron is located in the beautiful Sequoyah Hills neighborhood, tucked away near downtown Knoxville and the Old City. This may be Knoxville’s most gluten-free and ingredient-conscious dining experience. You may even see Chef McDonald at the Market Square Farmers Market, carefully selecting ingredients that inform the flavors of his kitchen. 

• Seasonal highlights: The menu is truly seasonal, but standouts can include cornmeal tempura chicken livers or a cheese and crackers appetizer featuring red wine chutney and Sequatchie Cove Cumberland Tomme; jowl bacon pizza; white sorghum and oyster mushroom “risotto;” sweet tea brined JEM Farm organic chicken or ramp chimichurri marinated lamb sirloin.
   
• Parking: Ample free parking is available onsite.
   
• Accessibility: Wheelchair-accessible entrance, restroom, and parking are available at Plaid Apron.

Knoxville’s favorite burger joint, Stock & Barrel, sits right on bustling Market Square and is an undeniable staple upon Knoxville’s food scene. With locally sourced ingredients like beef raised by Mitchell Family Farms of Blaine, Tennessee, cheeses from Sweetwater Valley Farm and bacon from Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams, these burgers will be some of the best you ever tasted. Sink your teeth into The Steakhouse topped with crispy onions, sauteed mushrooms, melted cheddar and drizzled with A1 sauce. Duck fat fries are the ultimate side, but the mac n' cheese and beer battered onion rings are great choices, too.

• Seasonal highlights: Try The Elvis, a unique Tennessee burger that celebrates the King of Rock n' Roll's favorite combo - peanut butter, fried banana and bacon topped on a burger. Add a bit of spice to your life with The Ring of Fire burger, topped with pepper jack, black bean and corn salsa, habanero, jalapenos and a delicious garlic aioli.
   
• Parking: Park in the Market Square Garage at 402 Walnut St. in downtown Knoxville.
   
• Accessibility: Stock & Barrel is ADA accessible with a step-free entrance and accessible seating. Inside Market Square Garage, there are wheelchair-accessible parking spots as well as elevators.