Guy Fieri Once Called This Brisket Sandwich 'Hillbilly Beef Wellington'

Guy Fieri has always been a tireless enthusiast for the best America has to offer, no matter how unexpected. Yet even the beloved "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" gourmand was surprised when he encountered a barbecue brisket sandwich he reverently described as "hillbilly Beef Wellington." When Fieri arrived in Dallas, Texas, he headed for Slow Bone BBQ, one of only two establishments in the city to make Texas Monthly's hotly contested 2025 list of the 50 best BBQ joints in the state. 

At Slow Bone, chef Jeffrey Hobb brings all the expertise he has accrued in both casual and fine dining to the Texas-style barbecue the restaurant has been serving up since 2013. But Fieri was not ready for the legendary Texas Nail, a towering sandwich of beef brisket, beer cheese, caramelized onions, green chilis, and a luxuriant mushroom duxelles.

Hobbs treats the brisket with a rub of roasted coffee, black pepper, chipotle powder, and granulated onion and garlic before imparting even more flavor by smoking the brisket's fat trimmings separately. Then, he renders the fat in a pot over a low flame in combination with butter and seasoning –- a technique Fieri confessed he had never seen before. Once blended and strained, this rich mixture coats the brisket before the meat is returned to the smoker.

Fieri may be known for being effusive, but that doesn't make his endorsements any less heartfelt or hard-won. Biting into the "succulent, juicy, unctuous" Texas Nail, Fieri proclaimed it "a gourmet meal disguised as a brisket barbecue sandwich."

The Texas Nail may be more than the sum of its parts. Arguably, its most distinctive element is a duxelles of smoked mushrooms, an inclusion not exactly traditional to Texas-style barbecue, but which makes Fieri's comparison with Beef Wellington more than mere hyperbole. Originating in classic French cuisine, a traditional duxelles will include finely chopped mushrooms, onions or shallots, garlic, and herbs, sautéed in butter and then formed into a rich, umami-heavy paste. In the case of the Beef Wellington, the duxelles is spread out on puff pastry –- along with, in some recipes, pâté, prosciutto, or crêpes – before being wrapped around the beef tenderloin.

While a brisket sandwich may seem like a far cry from an infamously elaborate dish like the Beef Wellington, the latter has inspired many variations, from a more budget-friendly Chicken Wellington to numerous vegetarian reinterpretations. So whether or not the Beef Wellington actually influenced the creation of the Texas Nail, finding some echo of it in a sandwich that marries barbecue and classic French cooking is not as counterintuitive as it might sound.