Comfort with a twist

Even the most delicious meal can leave you with a hangover of guilt. It’s common enough to regret hefty calories or price tags. At Woodlake Tavern, diners might feel self-conscious about eating $24 delicately smoked meats in a community where some residents might not be able to afford it.

One of Sacramento’s poorest neighborhoods, Del Paso Heights has recently attracted hip food businesses, including two adjoining restaurant concepts: Woodlake Tavern, a fine dining restaurant, and Uptown Pizza, a casual pizzeria in an adjacent but separate storefront. Inside the very same wedge-shaped building where Cask & Barrel once fed Sacramento upscale barbecue, Woodlake Tavern carries on the torch to serve dressed-up comfort foods for dinner and happy hour.

Opened in December, Woodlake Tavern has become a laboratory for accomplished local food workers. A husband-and-wife couple owns the restaurant and adjoining pizzeria: Elizabeth-Rose Mandalou adds her knack for clever cocktails after her stint as a sommelier at Ella Dining Room & Bar, and Deneb Williams was the former executive chef of Firehouse Restaurant. Executive chef Joseph Pruner brought his fine-dining bona fides from Mulvaney’s B&L.

The restaurant’s menu and interior design sparkle with an art deco sheen to present decadent food with a Gatsby-esque vibe. After all, this isn’t just down-home smoked meat—it’s prepared in a $22,000 smoker.

And Pruner’s barbecue does taste wonderful. In the BBQ Combo Plate ($24), you can sample the highlight reel on a wooden slab: Alabama White barbecue sauce sweetens sous vide chicken. Peppery South Texas seasoning tenderizes a brisket, producing supple beef that flakes apart. Hearty, spicy sausage comes with pungent creole mustard and the type of tough bratwurst skin that signals quality. The only weak point are the ribs, which cling to the bone more insistently than better cuts at, say, Empress Tavern. An accompanying yummy biscuit had a crackly, sugary shell and buttered insides, and pickled vegetables from purple to green added a visual—and vinegary—pop.

A fine meaty adventure of the palate. But as soon as you leave the art deco getaway, you enter a historically black and poor neighborhood after having eaten somewhat pricey New American interpretations of dishes drawn, in part, from black Southern culture.

Sheltered inside the sunny patio with a fountain, all you can think about is: That burger! The Tavern Burger ($14 for dinner, $10 for happy hour) literally drips with umami juices from the meat, which is gussied up with smoked white cheddar, crisp red leaf lettuce and creamy tomato marmalade and aioli. Wisps of fried onions add a layer of crispy texture and caramelized flavors. It’s all sandwiched between two brioche buns with a golden sheen that wrinkles satisfyingly with each bite.

Also noteworthy: the small plates, including the thick, flavorful Crab & Shrimp Cake ($14) and the Spring Gnocchi ($11) with house-cured bacon, plump peas and feta. The pillowy potato pasta soaks up bright and bitter oils from arugula pesto and sun-dried tomatoes.

Less impressive yet decent, the Shrimp & Grits ($19) tastes creamy and buttery, but in a way that feels abstracted from the meal’s origins as affordable porridge. Southern, sloppy grits have turned firm for well-to-do Californians.

Still, Woodlake Tavern’s carefully crafted dishes are enough to root for them to succeed. Comfort food has long suffered from a stigma that it should not enter the fine-dining realm or become expensive because of its humble origins. The tavern combats this idea with its attention to detail. But the shuttering of Cask & Barrel raises the question: Does Del Paso Heights want upscale comfort food? Or will Sacramentans drive out of their way to try it?