Nico’s Lounge Restaurant and Bar Offers a World of Flavors

Stewed chicken and jollof rice

Nico's Lounge Restaurant and Bar

4750 Nolensville Pike

Nigerian food is among the world's most underrated cuisines. Luckily for Nashville, Nico's Lounge Restaurant and Bar has been flying the Naija flag proudly for a number of years out in South Nashville.

Located just a stone's throw from the intersection of Haywood Lane and Nolensville Pike, Nico's offers a wide sampling of Nigerian and West African dishes out of an unassuming building that blends seamlessly into its surroundings. The interior is cavernous, complete with a fully stocked bar, gargantuan flat-screen televisions, and a spacious floor plan that easily converts into a quinceañera-ready dance floor and event space. There are plenty of tables, though tableside service itself is limited, with the actual ordering done far in the back of the restaurant out of a minuscule kitchen window. I recommend getting your food to go, though there is ample space to stretch out and tuck in if the jollof cravings become too powerful.

Nigerian food is, like all great culinary traditions, multidimensional. It's impossible to apply a single adjective to the cuisine, just as it's difficult to define all cooking within the political borders of Nigeria as solely "Nigerian." Consider the vast differences contained within the broader umbrellas of Indian, Chinese and Mexican cooking — dishes are usually better categorized by their regional origins. Nigeria is a deceptively large country (bigger than any U.S. state aside from Alaska) with bustling urban centers, lush impenetrable forests, and desolate desert landscapes populated by hundreds of different ethnocultural groups. But anyway — what exactly is Nigerian food?

For one thing, it's diverse. Nico's menu runs the gamut from quick and simple items like spicy suya beef kebabs and moi moi — a deliciously savory steamed cake of black-eyed peas and peppery spice — to complex soups and stews. There's little in the way of descriptive flair on the menu, however, so keep your phone handy for Googling when deciding what to order.

The menu is also chock-full of flavors that manage to surprise as they emerge from the low-key kitchen. The ideal Nigerian dish is spicy (sometimes mouthburningly so) and comes loaded with fresh ingredients, tender meat and umami flavor. One of the best examples is egusi, a hearty stew of ground melon seeds and leafy greens that Nico's does particularly well. The flavor is smoky and savory, and a hefty amount of palm oil adds a deliciously earthy flavor throughout the dish. This is comfort food at its finest, and its freshness and spice make it all the more addictive. Other dishes make use of Nigeria's huge amounts of local flora and fauna, including ogbono (wild mango seed) soup and okra stew, which combine bright flavors with a rich, gelatinous texture that gives each bite a wallop of taste and texture. Goat pepper soup is another star, with a dense and piquant flavor that lovers of game will appreciate.

No main dish is complete without swallow — starchy dough-like side dishes made from tubers or plantains common throughout Africa. Swallow tends to take the place of white rice as the carbohydrate of choice for many Nigerian dishes, and for good reason. The nutty, slightly bitter flavor of swallow (akin to unseasoned mashed potatoes) balances the oily richness present in many Nigerian dishes in a way that rice simply can't. While the taste is bland when taken alone, swallow comes alive when eaten with a partner dish. The most famous of these is fufu, an amorphous blob that fascinated me for years before I was able to try it. But Nico's offers plenty of other options, such as amala, a swallow of Yoruba origin with a wholesome texture and surprising benefits as a low-carb health food.

Then there's jollof rice, perhaps West Africa's best-known culinary export. Nico's is no slouch here either, offering the fragrant tomato-based party rice as a plate with your choice of meat. Jollof rice is a cultural institution throughout West Africa, which is why heated debates around where it came from and which country does it best are still raging. It strikes a balance between adventurous spice and recognizably savory flavors that just work in a way the great dishes of the world do.

When you see a plate of jollof rice and chicken, or take your first glance at a lovingly prepared stew smelling of smoked crawfish and okra, you see a likely origin for Cajun/Creole jambalaya and crawfish étouffée, Jamaican brown stew chicken and rice and peas, and dozens of other renowned dishes and cuisines. But Nigerian food isn't only notable for the stories it tells and other dishes it may have inspired. It's just good eating as well.

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