TASTE
Hooked on Hot Chicken
A confluence of food-business trends is behind Sacramento ’ s fried chicken fad
BY Jennifer Fergesen PHOTOS BY Debbie Cunningham
Cecil L . Rhodes II opened the Nash & Proper brick-and-mortar restaurant in downtown Sacramento in September 2020 .
Sacramento has been invaded by Nashville-style hot chicken . The Tennessee-born variety of fried chicken , lacquered in a cayenne-based spice paste and served with pickles , was once a novelty in the Capital Region . Last year , it became almost as easy to find as tacos or teriyaki .
There are now four businesses in Sacramento focused on hot chicken , plus one in Citrus Heights , and at least 10 Nashville-inspired sandwiches at other restaurants in the city . Some add a tongue-curling pinch of ghost pepper or habanero to the spice blend , others temper the heat with a salve of ranch or Thousand Island dressing . One place slips potato chips between the buns . The chicken is breast , thigh or wing ; panko-covered or beer-battered ; served on the bone or trimmed into tenders . And some sandwiches prefaced “ Nashville hot ” aren ’ t chicken at all : Pure Soul Plant-Based Eats in East Sacramento served a vegan Nashville Hottie made of seitan , a grain-based substitute .
Most of Sacramento ’ s hot chicken dispensaries are less than a year old , but the dish has been around for more than 80 . Its birthplace , Prince ’ s Hot Chicken Shack in Nashville , opened in the 1930s and inspired local devotion for decades before city government pushed to market the dish as Nashville ’ s only “ indigenous food ” in the early 2000s . Hot chicken became a trend that reached national levels around 2016 , the year KFC introduced its own fast-food approximation at more than 4,300 locations across the country .
February 2021 | comstocksmag . com 31