The Park Grill

FOOD

The food at The Park Grill works best when considered as a full lodge meal rather than a single entrée. The current menu is built around Certified Angus Beef steaks, ribs, pork, trout, salmon and chicken, but the unlimited salad bar is the opening act and one of the restaurant’s defining reasons to come. It can be ordered alone, comes with steaks and specialty entrées, and is substantial enough to change how the rest of the meal should be approached.

The bar stretches through a long, highly visible run of chilled ingredients rather than a small token selection. Greens and familiar salad vegetables form the base, joined by cheeses, fruit, hard-boiled eggs, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, baby corn, pasta salad and a deep field of toppings and house-made dressings. The more distinctive old-school flourishes are what give it personality: pickled okra, bread-and-butter pickles and smoked oysters have all remained part of the recent spread. It rewards a first plate built lightly enough to justify going back.

From there, the menu turns squarely toward hearty Smokies dining. Steaks include ribeye, New York strip and filet mignon, with the restaurant using Certified Angus Beef and Tennessee hickory charcoal as part of its grill identity. The ribeye is the richest choice; the strip gives a more classic steakhouse balance; filet provides the leaner, tender route. A shrimp skewer, trout fillet, salmon or moonshine chicken can be added to an entrée when a combination plate sounds more appealing than one large cut.

The non-steak side of the menu is broad enough that the salad bar does not force everyone into beef. Fresh boneless rainbow trout can be grilled or fried, while salmon is grilled over hickory charcoal. Smoky Mountain shrimp comes grilled or fried. The slow-roasted baby back ribs remain a house signature, and the BBQ sampler combines pulled pork, barbecue chicken breast and ribs. After 5 p.m., a two-rib-thick 16-ounce pork chop adds one of the menu’s most imposing plates.

The Hickory Grilled Moonshine Chicken is particularly tied to the restaurant’s Tennessee personality: a large boneless breast marinated with pineapple juice and moonshine and finished with grilled pineapple. Around it are sides that lean into comfort food, including garlic mashed potatoes, a sweet potato casserole with coconut, baked potato after 5 p.m., wild rice, onion rings, potato salad and coleslaw. The shrimp bisque is another worthwhile detour, especially for someone using the salad bar as the main course.

Starters are unapologetically snackable and Southern-leaning: fried green tomatoes with Cajun ranch, fried pickles, crispy fried chicken skins, fried Gouda mac-and-cheese bites, honey-and-bacon Brussels sprouts and pepper-jack spinach queso. They can easily become too much before an unlimited salad bar, which is worth remembering when ordering for the table.

Dessert returns to the oversized vacation-meal mood. Hot blackberry cobbler arrives with vanilla ice cream, banana pudding is served in a pint-size mason jar, and the Black Bear Brownie Bash stacks ice cream between Ghirardelli chocolate-chip brownies with hot fudge and whipped cream. A dessert sampler gathers crème brûlée, blackberry cobbler and chocolate mousse for sharing – probably the most practical ending after several trips through the salad bar.