Put on your Fancypants: New East Nashville restaurant opens from Butcher & Bee owners

The team at East Nashville's newest fine-dining spot Fancypants wants to give people a reason to get dressed up — but don't take it too seriously.

From the owners of Butcher & Bee and Redheaded Stranger, Fancypants is a vegetable-forward fine-dining restaurant located at the heart of new developments on the Dickerson Pike corridor . The only dress code requirement: "Please wear pants."

After three years of planning, design and construction, the business officially opens its doors this weekend and is taking reservations through September .

"The name Fancypants, it really encapsulates what we're trying to do, both be upscale and elevated and communicate that it's a little bit silly," partner and creative director Jake Mogelson said. "It's not going to be pretentious."

Mogelson said he and his team at Honest to Goodness Hospitality didn't have a concept in mind when they first found the space at 921 Dickerson Pike. In fact, they weren't initially looking to open a new restaurant at all.

In 2021, Mogelson and his business partner Bryan Weaver were helping a fellow restaurateur scout out the city. The moment they stepped into the future home of Fancypants, the two looked at each other and knew they had to take it.

"I saw a ton of potential. We've seen how much that neighborhood has changed with Redheaded Stranger being there," Mogelson said. "We knew we could make something really special and really beautiful there, so we actually went from trying to help someone else find a restaurant to doing it ourselves."

Fancypants delivers a prix fixe multi-course menu for its guests, and prices range from $70 to $90 per person. Mogelson said that decision was a direct result of the success they've seen with the chef's choice dining option at Butcher & Bee.

The opening menu includes items like chicken fried cauliflower with coconut gravy, miso butter mafaldine with a peanut chili garlic crunch, grilled lion's mane mushroom with potato puree and a birthday cheesecake with a sugar cookie crust.

Fancypants will also serve up its own takes on classic martinis and cosmopolitans, plus seasonal cocktails like the Jorts, with Miller High Life, Aperol, passionfruit, pineapple and lemon bitters.

"We have a reputation for making vegetables f------ delicious, and we didn't want to shy away from that fact and lean on other traditional crutches to make a meal feel luxurious, such as a dollop of caviar or a foie gras," Mogelson said. "We really wanted to highlight our local produce and the farmers that we've built these great relationships with."

The Farm & Fiddle and a Tennessee mushroom farm are two local providers Fancypants is working with. The team is also collaborating with Southern Grist to create a specialty sour beer.

"We're really trying to tie into our community here and highlight what other great people are doing as well," Mogelson said.

Hadley Hitson covers trending business, dining and health care for The Tennessean. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com . To support her work, subscribe to The Tennessean .

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Put on your Fancypants: New East Nashville restaurant opens from Butcher & Bee owners