The plates that define Knoxville: what they are, where they came from, and where to eat the canonical version.
Signature dishes
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White Lily Biscuits with Sausage Gravy ★ 4.9
Knoxville's signature Appalachian biscuit, made with hometown White Lily 9-percent-protein soft red winter wheat flour milled here since 1883.
Where to try it: Pete's Restaurant and Coffee Shop, The Plaid Apron, Tupelo Honey Southern Kitchen, Litton's Market and Restaurant
Price: $8-12
White Lily flour was founded by J. Allen Smith in Knoxville in 1883, named for his wife Lillie. The low-protein soft wheat flour became the Southern biscuit standard for over a century. Pete's Coffee Shop on Union Avenue has served the canonical Knoxville version since 1986. The International Biscuit Festival on Market Square each May anchors the city's biscuit calendar.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Pork
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East Tennessee Pulled Pork ★ 4.7
Knoxville's hickory-smoked pulled pork sandwich, the East Tennessee tradition that runs sweet rather than vinegar-forward and arrives on a soft white bun.
Where to try it: Buddy's Bar-B-Q, Sweet P's BBQ Uptown Corner, Dead End BBQ, Calhoun's on the River
Price: $10-15
Buddy's Bar-B-Q opened at 5806 Kingston Pike in 1972 and codified East Tennessee whole-hog barbecue into a region-wide chain with hickory smoke and a thin sweet tomato sauce. Sweet P's BBQ added a soul-food angle to the East TN tradition in 2009 with the riverfront location on Maryville Pike. Dead End BBQ in Bearden brought the competition-team approach to a Sutherland Avenue dining room with multiple regional trophy wins on the KCBS circuit.
Watch out for: Gluten, Pork
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Petro's Chili and Chips (The Petro) ★ 4.3
The Knoxville-original chili-over-Fritos bowl born at the 1982 World's Fair, served in a sliced-open Fritos bag with chili, cheese, sour cream and salsa.
Where to try it: Petro's Chili and Chips Downtown
Price: $6-10
Joe and Carol Schoentrup and Mark and Ann Lawrence built a food concession at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville serving chili over corn chips. They called it the Petro after the fair's energy theme. The concession sold 175,000 units in six months, then sold to brothers Dale and Keith Widmer who built it into the East Tennessee chain that still serves the original Petro at Market Square.
Watch out for: Corn, Dairy
Book food experiences in Knoxville
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Smoky Mountain Trout ★ 4.5
Pan-seared mountain stream rainbow trout, the Appalachian foothills' freshwater catch served whole or as fillets with butter, lemon and Smoky Mountain herbs.
Where to try it: J.C. Holdway, The Plaid Apron, Bistro at the Bijou
Price: $22-38
Rainbow and brook trout from the Great Smoky Mountains streams have anchored East Tennessee menus since the 1930s when the national park was established. Joseph Lenn at J.C. Holdway brought the dish into modern fine dining with foothills smoking techniques. The Plaid Apron and Blackberry Farm both run trout off the spring and summer menus.
Watch out for: Fish, Dairy
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East Tennessee Country Ham ★ 4.4
The salt-cured aged country ham of East Tennessee tradition, served thin-sliced with red-eye gravy and a buttermilk biscuit on Knoxville breakfast plates.
Where to try it: Pete's Restaurant and Coffee Shop, Litton's Market and Restaurant, The Plaid Apron
Price: $11-16
East Tennessee country-ham curing traces back to the Appalachian smokehouse tradition of salt-curing whole pork legs through the winter. Knoxville breakfast plates pair the ham with red-eye gravy made from black coffee and ham drippings. Pete's Coffee Shop and Litton's both run the Tennessee country-ham breakfast year round.
Watch out for: Pork
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Pinto Beans and Cornbread ★ 4.3
The Appalachian comfort plate of slow-simmered pinto beans with country ham and a skillet of buttermilk cornbread, the most-resilient East Tennessee.
Where to try it: Litton's Market and Restaurant, Sunspot, Pete's Restaurant and Coffee Shop
Price: $8-12
Pinto beans and cornbread is the foundational Appalachian working-class meal: protein, starch, salt and pork fat from the smokehouse, all in one pot, with the cornbread cracklin'd in a hot cast-iron skillet greased with bacon drippings. Sunspot on Cumberland Avenue, Litton's in Fountain City and Pete's downtown all run pinto-bean plates on the regular menu, the East Tennessee canon of the dish kept close to the country original.
Watch out for: Dairy, Eggs
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Tennessee Stack Cake ★ 4.3
The Appalachian wedding-and-funeral cake of stacked spiced ginger biscuit layers cemented with dried-apple butter, sliced thin and aged a day before serving.
Where to try it: Magpies Bakery, The Plaid Apron
Price: $8-14 per slice
Stack cake originated in Appalachian Kentucky and East Tennessee in the 1800s as a community-built wedding cake where each guest brought a layer to be assembled at the reception with home-canned apple butter or dried-apple filling between each. Magpies Bakery on North Central runs the modern Knoxville version on its special-order menu, and East Tennessee bakeries serve it during apple season from late August through November.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs
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The Mahasti Pizza ★ 4.5
The Tomato Head signature pizza on Market Square since 1990, with sun-dried tomato pesto, fresh mozzarella, basil and a thin Knoxville-style sourdough crust.
Where to try it: The Tomato Head, The Tomato Head Bearden
Price: $14-22
Mahasti Vafaie opened The Tomato Head on Market Square in 1990 and named the signature pie after herself, the pizza topped with house pesto, feta, sun-dried tomatoes and Kalamata olives. The Persian-American counter has run pizza, sandwiches and salads on Market Square ever since, making it downtown Knoxville's longest-running independent restaurant and a Market Square Saturday-morning landmark for two generations of regulars.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
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Yassin's Falafel Sandwich ★ 4.7
The Knoxville-canonical Syrian falafel sandwich: hand-rolled chickpea fritters in pita with tahini, pickled vegetables and Yassin Terou's hot sauce.
Where to try it: Yassin's Falafel House (Marble City Food Hall), Yassin's Falafel House West Knoxville
Price: $7-10
Yassin Terou arrived in Knoxville as a Syrian refugee in 2011 and opened Yassin's Falafel House on Walnut Street in 2014. The shop was named Reader's Digest 'Nicest Place in America' in 2018. The brand now operates from Marble City Food Hall, West Knoxville on Peters Road and Alcoa, with a presidential portrait of Yassin shaking hands with leaders on the wall.
Watch out for: Gluten, Sesame
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Tennessee Hot Chicken ★ 4.3
The Tennessee fried-chicken tradition that originated in Nashville and runs at Knoxville counters with a cayenne-and-lard paint applied after frying.
Where to try it: Stock and Barrel
Price: $13-18
Hot chicken originated at Prince's Hot Chicken Shack in Nashville in the 1930s, the cayenne-and-lard paint developed as a payback by Andre Prince's then-girlfriend that backfired into a Nashville signature. The Tennessee style migrated east to Knoxville in the 2010s and now appears on East Tennessee fried-chicken menus across the city, with Stock and Barrel on Market Square plating the canonical Knoxville version at the burger-and-bourbon room.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
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Knoxville Stack Burger ★ 4.6
The Knoxville American burger tradition: hand-pattied beef from Mitchell Family Farms or East Tennessee farms, on a Flour Head Bakery bun with Sweetwater.
Where to try it: Stock and Barrel, Litton's Market and Restaurant, The Plaid Apron
Price: $13-17
Litton's in Fountain City has run the Knoxville canonical burger since 1946. Stock and Barrel formalized the East Tennessee farm-sourcing approach in 2013 with Mitchell Family Farms beef, Flour Head Bakery buns and Sweetwater Valley cheddar. The Stack burger style runs across multiple Knoxville rooms now.
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
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Sweet Tea ★ 4.2
The East Tennessee sweet-tea tradition: black tea brewed strong and sweetened with a syrup of dissolved sugar while still hot, served over ice with a lemon.
Where to try it: Pete's Restaurant and Coffee Shop, Buddy's Bar-B-Q, Litton's Market and Restaurant
Price: $3-4
Sweet tea is the Southern standard non-alcoholic table drink, served at every East Tennessee diner counter and meat-and-three room. Pete's Coffee Shop on Union pours it from a 2-gallon dispenser into Mason jars; Buddy's Bar-B-Q runs a similar service. The sweet tea here is sweeter than Nashville or Memphis versions.
Signature Dishes in Knoxville, FAQ
What food is Knoxville known for?
Knoxville's signature dishes include White Lily Biscuits with Sausage Gravy, East Tennessee Pulled Pork, Petro's Chili and Chips (The Petro), Smoky Mountain Trout, East Tennessee Country Ham. See our signature dishes chapter for where to eat each.