Right on ’Cue

Slow & Low Smokehouse in Elk Grove may just be the crown jewel in the white-hot trending neighborhood around the site of the city’s old railroad station. The carnivorous space draws you in with the wafting aroma of beef, pork, chicken and sausage as you pass by the outdoor smoker to the side of the entryway. Yet Slow & Low is also the kind of restaurant where many of the reviews on social media are going to be either five stars or two stars—and not because of its quality, which is very high. Rather, because barbecue might be the most divisive, opinionated cuisine in America. Beef or pork? Austin vs. Memphis vs. Kansas City vs. North Carolina vs. South Carolina? Should the sauce be tomato- or mustard-based? Nativists from each region will die on that hill, splattered in whichever color they believe to constitute the One True Way.

What makes this new collaboration between restaurateur Michael Hargis and executive chef Brock Macdonald—the duo that hit their stride with the midtown sausage mecca LowBrau and masterminded R Street’s meat-veggie concept Beast & Bounty—particularly interesting is that Hargis and Macdonald are each passionate about ’cue, but hail from opposite ends of the barbecue spectrum. As a result, Slow & Low is a little bit country, and a little bit rock ’n’ roll. In other words, sure to be delicious and at least a little bit at odds—in a good way.

The bright and airy dining room, with its blond wood counters and communal tables, presents a Californian interpretation of a classic Southern barbecue joint.

Hargis grew up in Dallas, where the only thing people take more seriously than their barbecue is—well, nothing is more serious in Texas than barbecue. Hargis’ mom even worked in a barbecue joint. “The magic behind Texas barbecue is slow smoking over real wood,” he says. “When you get the bark, the smoke ring, and the juiciness of brisket, there’s nothing like it in the world.”

What Hargis just described are the results of the Maillard reaction, the complex chemistry that gives barbecue that meaty, crusty “bark” he refers to. Slow & Low gets its name from the process of cooking meat over the course of hours at roughly 250 degrees. For instance, the brisket in question smokes for eight to 12 hours, while the tri-tip smokes for four to six—still low, not quite so slow—with pitmaster and former LowBrau chef Jeran Dickerson pulling them while still rare and juicy. The wood fire needs tending every 15 to 30 minutes, and that’s after the smoker starts its delicious duty around 2 a.m. each day—so someone’s working on your barbecue while you’re still dreaming of it. “We don’t do anything easy,” Hargis says.

Pitmaster Jeran Dickerson tends the wood-fired outdoor smoker, which starts up every day around 2 a.m.

Meanwhile, Brock Macdonald was raised in San Luis Obispo, where he proved himself to be something of a prodigy behind the grill. Starting at age 12, he would accompany his dad to weekend gatherings at Lake Nacimiento, and cook up meaty offerings for the group. “I legitimately used to grill for 20 to 30 dudes,” he says. He had found his calling.

In the years since, Macdonald has also found his taste, and Slow & Low emphasizes his preference for taking meat neat. BBQ noobs often assume that the real thing looks like an order of Claim Jumper ribs, arriving at the table slathered in sticky, corn-syrupy sauce. But “real” barbecue comes with the sauce on the side to be deployed sparingly—if at all. A lot of purists eschew sauce entirely; for some, the One True Way to devour ’cue is naked. That includes Macdonald. “I’m not a saucy kind of person,” he says with a laugh.

Slow & Low owner Michael Hargis (left) and executive chef Brock Macdonald

The Slow & Low house sauces are appropriately vinegar-forward. Meat cooked slow and low depends on its high fat content for that fall-off-the-bone succulence—the round, unctuous mouthfeel that most of us either love or hate. (“Quite a few people have said the brisket’s really fatty,” Hargis says. “I’m like, ‘I know, isn’t it awesome?’ ”) A piquant, astringent sauce provides a high-pitched accent note to balance out the satisfying, basso heaviness of the meat without disguising it, and Slow & Low has four to choose from: spicy, sweet (which “still has a ton of vinegar in it,” Macdonald reassures us), mustard-based gold and Alabama white. The latter sauce, which adorns the exceptionally gooey, cheesy burger (and which Hargis and MacDonald actually discovered on a trip to Tennessee) comprises tangy mayo, vinegar and horseradish in a concoction seldom seen on the West Coast.

This mural designed by Lily Therens and painted by Jeremy Stanger offers up a colorful vision of a pan-desert utopia, incorporating elements from Texas and California.

The décor in the cavernous former warehouse building is cathedral-like. While simple wood communal tables and benches designed by Hargis and crafted by local artisan Phill Moskalets of Phillbuilt (who also built furniture for A-list Sacramento restaurants Canon and Localis) say “barbecue joint,” the finishes don’t. Barbecue palaces in Texas tend to feature wooden furniture, all stained to roughly the shade of a tangy red barbecue sauce and covered in vinyl tablecloths for reasons that should be obvious: Seat a hungry party of four in front of a tray of barbecue, and it’s going to look like a crime scene when the sated lion pride finally wanders away. Bibs and wipes are de rigueur. “We didn’t want the space to just be like a hole-in-the-wall barbecue spot,” Hargis says. “We wanted it to be a little bit elevated.”

The brisket sandwich brings in crunchy pickled vegetables to provide counterpoint to the rich meat.

In that spirit, Hargis has boldly gone blond with the wood tones. “People are nervous. They’re like, ‘I don’t want to get sauce on it!’ ” he says with a laugh about the whitewashed alderwood tables and benches. “Actually, the finish is indestructible.” There are other high-design details, like a custom pattern print for the paper that lines the barbecue trays and murals of a magical Texas-meets-California desert—all by Lily Therens, who also created the murals at Urban Roots Brewery & Smokehouse and is now on staff for Hargis’ restaurant group. “I love geeking out on the design elements,” Hargis says.

The resulting airy, sophisticated aesthetic is quintessentially Cali. Just don’t think that means it’s a good idea to wear a white shirt when you visit, because you will want to gnaw that gargantuan, charred beef rib with abandon—the bark on that rib is epic. If you and your dining party want to make like a lion pride, order up the Smoke Show, a sample platter of ribs, tri-tip, brisket, pulled pork and chicken, with all the sides.

Brocc’s Bowl speaks to chef Brock Macdonald’s desire to have both healthful vegetables and meaty decadence in one dish.

On the lighter end, the bowls at Slow & Low are a very California approach to Cali-Tex fusion. Brocc’s Bowl combines rice and still-crunchy spears of broccoli with Vietnamese nuoc cham sauce redolent of chili pepper, vinegar and fish sauce, and tart Kewpie mayo from Japan, the perfect bed for a few slices of meltingly rare tri-tip. “I wanted something [on the menu] I would want to eat every day,” Macdonald says. That same nuoc cham sauce dresses the brisket sandwich, which resembles a Vietnamese banh mi, with slices of brisket contrasted with fresh pickled daikon and herbs for crunch. Meanwhile, the Love Child is a mix of farro, arugula, roasted sweet potatoes, dates, gorgonzola and your choice of meat (or none at all), dressed in a lemon vinaigrette. And the chili bowl is made with brisket, pork rib trimmings, ground beef—and no sacrilegious beans. (That’s right, second only to the hardline stances on sauce may be the debate over the bean content of chili.) “That’s what chili is,” Macdonald deadpans. “It doesn’t have beans.”

Chef Macdonald’s chili is a Texas-style honky-tonk party in a bowl, to which beans of any kind are not invited.

In barbecue, even the sides can provoke strong opinions. “Me personally, I think cornbread should be dense and gritty and have bite and fill you up,” Macdonald passionately avows. “And not be f–king yellow cake that tastes like corn, right?!?” His cornbread is dense enough to stand up to a heavy dollop of honey butter, while his baked mac and cheese gets a breadcrumb crust. Tangy coleslaw gets some apple slices for a sweet spike, and the smoked-turkey-laced greens are rich and dark the way they should be—you can practically feel all that iron entering your bloodstream and making you Popeye-strong. The butterscotch banana cream pie is another mash-up that feels like an instant classic.

The standout side echoes LowBrau’s legendary duck fat fries: a paper envelope of smoked beef fat fries, battered and deep fried in fat rendered down from brisket trimmings. This version of the fast-food staple is so simple, yet such an outstanding expression of what can be achieved by slowing our food down—waaaay down. As to which is better: duck fat or beef tallow? That is a barbecue controversy whose slow, low flames we’ll be happy to fan forever. 

Slow & Low Smokehouse. 9700 Railroad St. Elk Grove. 916-775-7569. slowandlow916.com