36 hours in Nashville, Tennessee

Imogene + Willie, a jeans purveyor, opened in 2009 in an old gas station. [Photo/Agencies]

7:00 PM

An All-Purpose Block: In the Gulch, the 404 Kitchen has fewer than 60 seats in a retrofitted shipping container, but has made a big impression. One recent evening, the chef Matt Bolus chatted with Eric Close, who plays mayor Teddy Conrad on ABC-TV's Nashville, while his kitchen wove Southern ingredients throughout the confident menu. (Dinner for two around $100, not including drinks.) With the restaurant; its sister hotel, a 10-room hideaway that opened in March; and the city's temple of bluegrass, the ($12 to $15 cover charge) next door, you'd never need to leave the block.

11:00 PM

Into the Wee Hours: Venture anyway for a nightcap at the Patterson House, if you fancy a little book-lined speakeasy with barmen in period costume who take their time with the ice balls and ginger syrup. Cocktails, about $12.

Sunday

9:30 AM

That Old-Timey Music: You don't have to care a lick about the earliest days of the Grand Ole Opry to be enthralled with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum ($22). Get an eight-ounce soy latte ($4.43) at the Bongo Java by the entrance of the splashy new Omni Hotel, stop into the Hatch Show Print gallery and the store where the old printing presses that made many iconic concert posters now live - all in the corridor that attaches the hotel to the museum as part of its ongoing integration into the Music City Center complex. Go early, before the crowds descend.

12:00 PM

Silence Your Cellphone: Brunch at Marche Artisan Foods, which is just down the hill from the Turnip Truck organic market and the nicely stocked Woodland Wine Merchant, is easy and casual and languorous - spindly chairs, heavy curtains pulled back from the street-front windows, pastries under glass, natives in no hurry at all. (Expect to pay $30 for two.) Use of mobile devices is forbidden in the dining room.

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