← Back to Maminette

A Name. A Memory. A Promise.

Maminette is my grandmother’s nickname. Before I left France to move to the United States, I asked her to do something precious: write down every family recipe she carried — recipes she had inherited from her own grandmother, some of them over 100 years old. She handed me three handwritten books, filled page by page in her own hand, a piece of France I could bring with me wherever I went.

She is the quintessential French grandmother. Every Sunday morning, she’d wake up at 8am, head to the fresh market, and spend the whole morning cooking — filling the house with smells that meant one thing: you were home, you were loved, and something wonderful was almost ready.

That feeling is exactly what Maminette the café is built around. When you walk through our doors, we want you to feel what I felt at her table — the warmth, the aromas, the sense that someone cooked this just for you. The logo you see is written in her own handwriting. Her portrait is on our menu. My family is on our walls. She’s everywhere here, because she’s the reason this place exists.

We didn’t want a restaurant. We wanted a home. Cozy, familial, unpretentious — a place where you feel immediately at ease, where the atmosphere wraps around you and the only thing that matters is that you eat very well. Everything on our menu is fully homemade, made from scratch using only raw, fresh ingredients — no shortcuts, no compromises. Just real food, the way it was always meant to be made.

Maminette is also the sister café of The Authentique, our French wine bar and crêperie in East Nashville. After years of bringing that spirit of French conviviality to East Nashville, we’re now bringing it to Donelson — and we can’t wait to welcome you.