Spice and Crunch Converge at Matty’s Hot Chicken

Though “hot” is the key word in the Nashville-inspired fried chicken currently consuming the fast-casual world, the crispy crunch of the skin and juiciness of the flesh are the style’s true standard bearers. Anyone can make something spicy, but can they make the exterior shatter like chunky glass in your mouth as you bite into a succulent interior?

Adam Abrams, the chef and proprietor of Matty’s Hot Chicken in the Santa Barbara Public Market, is nearly two years into that quest, and he’s already hitting those critical marks. My recent order of his chicken on the bone was encased in a fascinatingly crackly, shell-like skin, which flaked off to reveal steaming morsels of meat.

The coating functioned as a preservation system, in that the meat was still moist and even a little warm by the time I took my leftovers home. The dense mac ‘n’ cheese, zippy pickles, and housemade kimchi made appropriate accompaniments, and my mostly vegetarian wife tore through the slice of white bread that had collected all the drippings and droppings with glee. And, yes, it’s also spicy hot. In fact, I’d ordered the “hot” version, but Abrams came out from the kitchen to suggest the “medium” strength, so I took his lead. He was right: medium was plenty hot, but left just enough room in my spice tolerance to dip every other piece of chicken into his citrusy habanero hot sauce, allowing me to titrate the intensity. (I do remain pretty curious what “Holy Hell Hot” would do to me.)

My colleague Nick Welsh ordered three wings right after me, reporting the “almost…mutantly oversized” wings to be quite crunchy and spicy, “somewhere in the border between almost enough heat and a little too much.” He was equally impressed with the fries. “The half-life of most fries these days is about 38 seconds — after that, they go soggy and flaccid no matter how much artisanal duck fat is boiled in,” said Welsh. “These lasted long enough so I mercifully didn’t feel I had to wolf them down.”

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That Abrams is able to nail these techniques shouldn’t surprise. While Matty’s is unpretentious in nature, the resume of this San Marcos High grad and SBCC Culinary Program alum includes the upper echelons of Santa Barbara cuisine: classic California-meets-French nouveau cuisine at bouchon and Wine Cask, steakhouse specialties at Lucky’s, high-end hotel dining at El Encanto and San Ysidro Ranch, even sushi at Arigato and Asian-Latin fusion at the late Cielito. But his cooking goes back to childhood — seminal meatball sessions with his mom, memorable bolognese with his dad — and the 37-year-old was working professionally by 2004 when still a teenager.

“I gravitated toward it,” he said of that calling. “It just forced me to really be in the moment. I wasn’t the type that did well sitting in classrooms for long periods of time.” Abrams found a lot of parallels between his young chef life and that of Anthony Bourdain’s, as detailed in the book Kitchen Confidential. “I’ve always loved the camaraderie, the pirate mentality of the kitchen,” said Abrams. “The beauty of cooking is that you’re actually nurturing people, you’re giving them an experience. I really enjoy the fact that I can make somebody’s day just by cooking them a plate of food.”

His interest in Southern food was sparked while working for Chef Brian Congdon at Duo Catering. “He’s been a huge influence on me,” said Abrams. “He was always cooking Creole and Southern stuff.”

When the pandemic threw Abrams on furlough, he floated the idea of doing a hot chicken pop-up past a few chef friends, who never shy away from shooting down dumb ideas. “They thought it would kill,” he explained, so he hosted his first Matty’s pop-up at Duo on January 10, 2021. It sold out as did future ones out of the Goodland Kitchen in Old Town Goleta. By August 2021, Matty’s was serving inside the Public Market, and is now open five days a week.

The menu benefits from R&D trips to fried chicken spots in Los Angeles, including Southern-showcasing Howlin’ Ray’s and K-Town’s Korean versions. “We have a heavy influence from both sides,” said Abrams of Matty’s. “Predominantly, we’re Southern, because we use cornmeal. But the Asian-style — Thai, Chinese, even Korean — is heavy with cornstarch, and we use both of those things in our dredge.”

Informed by his fine dining experience, Abrams sources premium ingredients, specifically chicken from Rocky Canyon Farm in Atascadero, wedge salad fixings from Roots Farm in Los Olivos, chilis for the hot sauce from Ormonde Farms in Arroyo Grande, and pork from Benton’s Country Ham from Madisonville, Tennessee. The latter was for a ham & cheese sandwich special, and Abrams also offers low-country black pepper gravy & biscuit sliders and chicken & mochi waffles for brunch on occasion.

Then it’s all methodology. “We spend a lot of time before the bird hits your mouth,” said Abrams of his brining process. “The process is pretty meticulous. It takes 48 hours.”

But the quest continues, indefinitely. His secret? “Never being happy with it,” said Abrams. “This could be crispier, or the chicken could be more juicy, or more tender. We’re easily over our 50th rendition. Eventually, we’ll be over 250. We’re always trying to tweak and make things better. Personally, I’m never satisfied.”

He does take great pride in the name Matty’s, which is to honor his late brother, Matthew Abrams, who died in 2016 at age 33 when his car went over a cliff near the Big Sur monastery where he’d been living and working. “This is my way of keeping his name going,” said Adam of his older brother, who could always handle the spiciest foods. “He was an amazing human. He cared about helping someone else before himself. I’m doing my best to keep his memory alive.”

Inside S.B. Public Market, 38 W. Victoria St.; (805) 724-4105; mattyshotchickensb.com 

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