Chef Darryl Bell, Jr. (Bouchon Bistro and PRESS) has created a chef-driven smokehouse in Napa with a sprinkling of inspiration from Kansas City legends Arthur Bryant's Barbeque and Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que. Guests at the upscale quick service restaurant can expect meats cooked with chef-like precision on 1,000-gallon Moberg Smokers, professional service led by partner Jeremy Threat (another Bouchon alum), and Napa Valley touches like a wine list studded with names like Caymus, House of Brown, and Turley. Cocktail lovers will enjoy the selection of drinks, including gin and tonic slushies, frozen espresso martinis, and sangria.

The signature side dish is a mixture of collard greens and heirloom Mayocoba beans sourced from Rancho Gordo. The savory coleslaw is studded with purple cabbage, jicama, and carrots. The greens for the kale salad are sourced from Meadowood Napa Valley's farm. Sundays bring gospel music and cornbread, which Bell says is a nod to enslaved people who traditionally shared hot water cornbread and went to church on their one day of rest.

The star, though, is the meat. Since leaving Press in 2022, Bell has logged every single batch of barbecue he cooked, noting how many pieces of cherry, oak, and hickory wood were used and the flavor it produced. “Everything is logged so I could get it dialed in,” he says. “The guest that orders today knows what they get tomorrow, and three weeks from now it is going to taste the same, if not better.”