Lockeland Table General Manager Cara Graham pours mixed-berry shrub cocktails.

-- Ellen Margulies | For The Ledger

There are three things you can count on if you take a walking food tour in East Nashville with – the appropriately named – Walk Eat Nashville:

1. You will discover new favorite dishes at familiar places.

2. You will try things you wouldn’t ordinarily sample on your own.

3. You will learn something new about the neighborhood, even if you thought you knew it all already.

Foodie and former journalist Karen-Lee Ryan formed the company to do something new in her professional life, and to share her love of East Nashville, where she and her husband had lived for several years. They have recently returned to the neighborhood after a 1½-year zigzag to San Antonio.

Ryan took an entrepreneurial class at The Skillery that helped cement her concept of a walking food tour, one of those face-palm why-didn’t-someone-already-think-of-this ideas.

Never one to be unprepared, Ryan researched East Nashville’s fascinating history, both food-related and non-, and peppers her scenic, 1.5-mile walking route with interesting tidbits about the people and events that shaped the area. As she describes it, she tells the stories of the rise and fall and rise again of East Nashville.

“There’s a constant pattern of reinvention and reinvigoration here,” she says.

Here’s a taste of the Walk Eat Nashville experience:

Ryan keeps up an easy, informal banter and is never thrown by wayward questions or chatty tour guests. At no point does she sound like she’s giving a spiel.

Without giving away too many surprises, there are things on this tour to appeal to everyone from history buffs to architecture fans to celebrity hunters.

And then, of course, there’s the food. Oh, the food. Our tour started out at the familiar Marche, one of the area’s first champions of the fresh and local movement. Our table of six – her tours will never exceed more than 10 people, so she can keep things intimate – shared apple tartines and butternut squash-farro salads.

Both sound deceptively simple, and that’s part of their charm, Ryan says.

“The reason I chose these dishes is because they showcase the freshness and simplicity of flavors” that Marche is known for, she adds.

With its sliced apples, brie and balsamic honey drizzle atop toasted sourdough raisin bread, the tartine is the sort of dish that would make you kick french toast out of bed. Crazy, I know.

And that butternut squash-farro salad? It has pretty much redefined salads for me. How arugula, squash, farro, currants, feta, fennel and white balsamic vinaigrette taste THAT good is beyond me, but I’m fairly sure there was magic involved.

Our other stops included:

• 5 Points Pizza, where we tried the slices of the day and chatted with one of the owners;

• Lockeland Table, where we were treated to a James Beard Award-winning salsa, pork sugo that was to be part of the next day’s special and a cocktail that ought to win a Beard, along with a cameo by the shy, but brilliant chef/owner Hal Holden-Bache;

• High Garden Tea Shop, where two of us confirmed non-tea drinkers were literally converted by the Autumn Apple flavor;

• Chocolate F/X, in which we got to sample truffles hand-crafted by a former special effects makeup artist;

• Bongo Java Roasting Company, where we wrapped up our adventure with our pick of Las Paletas ice pops, since the cool-ish day had turned off hot by tour’s end.

Every stop was punctuated by amazing food and drink, friendly owners and makers – most of whom knew Ryan long before she started this company – and constant surprises.

With her natural affinity for storytelling and her genuine interest in people – Ryan is the sort of woman who has never met a stranger, and my nickname for her has long been the Unofficial Mayor of East Nashville – it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which this venture wouldn’t be a success.

The experience would appeal as much to East Nashville insiders as it would to visitors looking for a unique way of getting to know Nashville. The tour would be equally appealing to high-brow foodies and people who eat Cheez-Its. Not that those two groups don’t sometimes overlap.

Ryan, of course, did several trial runs and has figured out what pace will work for a diverse group ranging in age from 20s to 50s, when to stop for a rest and how to make everyone feel welcomed and special. The tours will be offered for $49 per person on Thursdays and Fridays, reserving early is recommended.

Come hungry, if not unfed.