Inside the Bigger, Bolder, and Better New World of American BBQ

The new world of American BBQ is now bigger, bolder, and dare we say, better.
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Winnie Au

You might think barbecue is all about tradition, about doing things the way they used to be done. But new ingredients, creative methods, and fresh faces have always found their way into one of this country’s oldest cuisines. From Savannah to Seattle, the most recent wave of pitmasters preach the gospel of all-wood cooking, just like barbecue’s earliest practitioners. But in many ways they act more like chefs than grizzled veterans. Heritage hogs are showing up on menus. Everything is homemade, down to the pickles. Well-marbled Prime has replaced leaner Select as the preferred grade of brisket. These neotraditionalists are young—most are under 40—yet they’ve shown plenty of wisdom, knowing which customs to heed and which to throw out with the overdressed slaw. Here, we celebrate the best in barbecue today. —Daniel Vaughn


Bryan Furman insists on using whole hogs—you can't get the same caliber of meat if you source only specific cuts. Photo: Andrew Thomas Lee

Photo by Andrew Thomas Lee
1. The Quality of the Meat Counts

We expect barbecue to be a bargain, which is why many legendary spots start with inexpensive commodity meats. But not B’s Cracklin’ BBQ, which opened in Savannah in 2014. Welder-turned-pitmaster Bryan Furman uses local pasture-raised, heritage-breed whole hogs, cooked over oak and cherrywood for 12 hours. The firmer fat of the Berkshire-Yorkshire hybrid melts into the meat, as if Furman were basting with butter. It was that difference that drew lines out the door. And then, after B’s busiest weekend ever last June, the restaurant burned to the ground (the cause: a faulty compressor in the soda machine). Fellow pitmasters lent Furman equipment so he could cook around town to raise money. B’s reopened after just four months, serving ’cue—the pork!—that’s as good as ever. —Andrew Thomas Lee


Pastrami ribs at Home Team BBQ in Charleston. Photo: Wes Frazer

Wes Frazer
2. Now There’s Pastrami on the Menu

Pastrami—beef brisket that’s been cured and smoked—is the quintessential Jewish deli order, usually piled high on rye. Recently it’s found a home in barbecue joints. Cattleack Barbeque in Dallas cubes beef-belly pastrami into salty nuggets. At The Granary ’Cue & Brew in San Antonio, coriander and black pepper tumble off of smoked pastrami beef ribs. Green Street Smoked Meats in Chicago serves brisket pastrami straight off the butcher paper. It’s not Katz’s, but we’re not complaining. —D.V.


Ramp potato salad and baked beans with smoked beef sausage and sorghum are just a couple of the sides you can now get with your 'cue. Photo: Andrew Thomas Lee

Andrew Thomas Lee
The Sides Are No Longer an Afterthought

It’s hard being a side. When you’re up against mahogany-crusted ribs, even mac and cheese can feel unloved. But now chefs like Elliott Moss at Buxton Hall in Asheville, NC, are doing what he calls “chef-driven, grandma-influenced sides.” They all respect the classics—but one-up them. —Andrew Knowlton


Sam Jones enjoying the fruits of his labor. Can you blame him? Photo: Andrew Thomas Lee

Andrew Thomas Lee
4. Get Over It: They Serve Booze

Alcohol has long been anathema to barbecue, but newer spots welcome it on menus. We asked two pitmasters about the addition. First there’s third-generation barbecue man Sam Jones, who runs the new Sam Jones BBQ in Winterville, NC, and the iconic Skylight Inn, owned by his family for nearly 70 years. Then there’s newbie Wyatt Dickson, who left a law career to open Picnic in Durham.

SJ: Skylight sold beer in the early days, but my grandfather stopped in the late ’50s. Fast-forward to now, there’s something about eastern North Carolina that says alcohol with barbecue is taboo. If you ask me, they go together—if somebody’s cooking pig at a tailgate they’re gonna be drinking beer. But people who are our parents’ age for the most part do not dig a restaurant in eastern North Carolina selling beer. The Greenville newspaper, The Daily Reflector, has this section called “Bless Your Heart”...
WD: You didn’t get one of those, did you? That’s a Southern F-you!
SJ: I was in “Bless Your Heart” every other day.
WD: Bless your heart, Sam, I’m sorry.
SJ: This is a column that could be used for good, like, “Bless your heart to the guy that gave me an extra dollar when I was short at the grocery store.”
It was used toward me as: “Bless your heart to every other barbecue place in eastern North Carolina for not selling beer.” Hint, hint, the new place, not gonna call any names, Sam Jones.
WD: You’re going to hell for it.
SJ: I had a lady in line tell me that!
WD: People are passionate about barbecue.
—Belle Cushing


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5. This Woman Is One of the Best in the Biz

There aren’t a lot of female pitmasters. And there are none like Helen Turner. Since 1996, six days a week (Sunday is for church), you’ll find her at Helen’s Bar B Q, a no-frills, freestanding wooden joint in Brownsville, TN, a little over an hour’s drive from Memphis. A one-woman show, she stokes the fire out back. She chops the pork. If you’re lucky, she’ll be the one to take your order. If you’re really lucky, she’ll laugh. The only thing better than her laugh is her pork. Get the sandwich. Get two, actually. —A.K.


Photo: Winnie Au

Winnie Au
6. Yankees Make Some of the Best

The idea that great barbecue doesn’t exist outside of the South was debunked years ago. But destination barbecue—the kind you’d drive hours out of your way for just to try a slab of spareribs? That was property of the South. At least until Billy Durney, a giant of a man and former bodyguard for the rich and famous, opened Hometown Bar-B-Que in the warehouse-filled Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn.

My Southern friends started texting me: “It looks like the real deal!” “Can we go next time I’m in town?” “Did New York finally get a barbecue spot you love?” (It is, we must, and yes.) Like many pioneers before him, Durney started smoking meats in his backyard for friends. A hobby grew into a profession. His traditional brisket, pork, and turkey could hold their own below the Mason-Dixon Line, while his Jamaican jerk baby back ribs and lamb belly might be the start of a New York City style. And his ginormous beef ribs, rubbed simply with salt and pepper and smoked for hours? Forget a drive. They’re worth a plane ticket. —A.K.


7. Pitmasters Have Fine-Dining Pedigrees

As more high-end chefs get into the business, some of their old ways have snuck into the smokehouse. —Julia Bainbridge

Barbecue Butter

Chef Tim Rattray of The Granary in San Antonio saves the liquid runoff from his slow-cooked beef, strains out the fat, and whips the results into butter to serve with Texas toast.

Well-Rested Brisket

Folks cock their heads when they learn Ronnie Killen rests the brisket at Killen’s Barbecue in Pearland, TX, for five hours. “Most people pick it right off the pit and cut it,” he says. For juicier results, Killen treats it like he does a rib eye at his nearby steakhouse.

Tweezer Time

Chefs often deploy tweezers for tasks like removing pin bones or placing garnishes. The habit carried over from David Lawrence’s 1300 on Fillmore in SF to his Black Bark BBQ, where the tool is used to put pickles on pulled pork sandwiches.

Take a tour of central Texas barbecue with Mark Ladner:
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