Top of the Rock Restaurant & Brewery

You earn dinner at Top of the Rock. The drive winds on long enough that you start wondering whether you’ve made an unnecessarily ambitious decision for a meal. Then you arrive, look out over the Tennessee River and the mountains stretching into the distance, and the argument is over. It is, without exaggeration, the most beautiful view we’ve ever had from a restaurant.

After a long birthday weekend spent hiking around the mountains, an elk burger and a cold pilsner felt appropriately hearty. The filet mignon brought the more celebratory side of dinner, paired with an Oktoberfest that suited the season and the setting. Nothing needed to be particularly complicated. We’d spent days climbing trails, chasing waterfalls, and wearing ourselves out. Meat and beer overlooking a ridiculous expanse of Tennessee was exactly where the weekend needed to land.

Cookie cake with ice cream finished things off, warm and sweet and excessive in the way a birthday dessert has every right to be. By then, though, the food was sharing top billing with what was happening outside the windows. You keep looking up between bites because it almost feels wasteful not to.

There are easier places to get dinner. That’s not the point. Sometimes you drive farther than makes sense, sit on top of a mountain with someone you love, order another beer, and watch the world stretch out beneath you. After a weekend of hikes celebrating Misty’s birthday, there couldn’t have been a better place to stop moving for a while.