A Scottsdale steakhouse brand in a downtown hotel, better than its address — order the Black Truffle Culotte and book it for a team dinner.
The Kitchen
Hand Cut Chophouse is the second location of a Scottsdale brand from Riot Hospitality Group, opened on 7th Avenue South in April 2023. It sits on the ground floor of the Embassy Suites, a block off lower Broadway. A hotel steakhouse invites a hotel verdict. This one mostly earns better.
The name is the argument. Executive chef Cory Winger butchers the beef in-house rather than taking it pre-portioned, and the difference reaches the plate. The Black Truffle Culotte — sirloin cap, black truffle cream, truffle butter — is the dish to order and the clearest thing the kitchen says about itself. The ribeye and the New York strip are the steadier bets: cut to weight that morning, cooked to the temperature you asked for, plated without theatre.
The burgers are not an afterthought. They are ground and formed in the same room and cooked with the same care, which is rarer than it sounds. The seafood is competent; the sea bass with spiced breadcrumbs and orange miso is the one worth ordering. Skip the salmon. It is the safe choice and tastes like one.
Dinner runs roughly $60 to $100 a head before wine. That is fair for downtown Nashville and well under the city's flagship rooms.
The Room
The room is warm and commercial — dark wood, low light, booths that seat a group without anyone raising a voice. It reads as a steakhouse, not a hotel lobby with tables, which is the trap most hotel restaurants fall into. The noise level is a comfortable hum. Dress is smart casual; no one will look at your collar.
It seats a large room across the dining floor and bar, with valet and attached hotel parking that solve the downtown arrival problem. Pre-show and post-Broadway tables turn quickly. Service is competent and unhurried, the kind that keeps a long table moving without making a production of it.
Best for a Team Dinner
Book this room for a team dinner for three reasons: it is central, it is open seven days, and the menu feeds a mixed group without negotiation. Steaks for the carnivores, in-house burgers for the two who don't eat steak, sea bass for the one who avoids red meat entirely. Nobody has to eat around the format.
Set menus and semi-private configurations are available for larger parties, and pre-arranged ordering keeps the pace honest. The bill lands in the range a finance department signs without a meeting. For a Nashville convention dinner or a late-booked group, it is the practical answer — central, reliable, and better than the address promises.
Not For
Skip this if you want a destination meal. Hand Cut Chophouse is a reliable downtown steakhouse, not one of Nashville's tasting-menu rooms — go to The Catbird Seat if the dinner itself is meant to be the event. Skip it too if you walk in carrying hotel-restaurant cynicism: the kitchen is better than its address, but it is a good chophouse and nothing grander, and it shouldn't be judged as if it were.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, if you set expectations to "good downtown steakhouse" rather than special occasion. The beef is butchered in-house and the Black Truffle Culotte is genuinely good, at roughly $60 to $100 a head. It outperforms its hotel address, which is the whole point — but it is not Nashville's fine-dining tier and doesn't pretend to be.
Start with the Black Truffle Culotte, the kitchen's signature sirloin cap with truffle cream and truffle butter. The ribeye and the New York strip are the most consistent steaks. The sea bass with orange miso is the seafood worth ordering. The burgers, ground in-house, are a real option rather than a concession — not what most hotel kitchens manage.
Not hard. It serves seven days across lunch and dinner, and walk-ins are usually possible on weeknights. Reservations are worth making for groups and for Friday or Saturday, when pre-show Broadway crowds fill the room. Book through OpenTable or call directly; large parties should ask about set menus.
Yes — it is one of the better team-dinner options downtown. The central location, seven-day service, group set menus, and a menu spanning steaks, burgers and seafood make it easy to feed a mixed group. Attached hotel parking and valet simplify arrival, and the price sits inside most corporate budgets. See more restaurants in Nashville.