Is New York Finally Becoming a Serious Barbecue City?

[Hammock Parties]

https://ny.eater.com/2016/6/13/11894...-barbecue-2016

Here's the truth: Until a decade ago, New York wasn't much of a barbecue town. There were chainlets and upscale theme spots, and one or two serious restaurants that stood out from the crowd, but there was no real barbecue culture. There was wood smoke, but there was no soul.

Like the very act of cooking meat with wood smoke, establishing a profound barbecue culture takes time. And while there have been barbecue restaurants in one form or another in NYC for decades, they tended towards pan-regional affairs offering a mishmash of barbecue styles. The restaurants that dominated the scene in the early 21st century — Virgil’s, Blue Smoke, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, Daisy May’s USA — offered such menus. But in the mid-to-late aughts, the city saw a new crop of restaurants focusing on specific regional styles, such as Central Texas (Hill Country) or Kansas City (R.U.B.). Other new 'cue restaurants adhered to specific culinary conceits, like Fatty Cue, which focused on Asian-influenced barbecue, and Wildwood, which claimed to be the first barbecue restaurant to sell "all natural meats" exclusively.

Clearly there is currency for authentic wood-smoked barbecue in NYC, but Manhattan real estate prices and environmental regulations make life difficult for restaurants that want to cook with live fire. This serves to stymie innovation, as investors will invariably opt for an established model over something revolutionary but unproven. And it makes it difficult for a distinct style to emerge. It is thus not surprising that the epicenter of barbecue has shifted from Manhattan and is now firmly in Brooklyn, with its cheaper real estate and less stringent regulations, as well as an increasingly receptive marketplace. Most new barbecue restaurants in Manhattan tend to be spinoffs of previously succesful establishments.

Brooklyn barbecue displays a particular aesthetic in terms of interior design — stripped down, industrial spaces that often contain distressed wood, wrought iron, and Edison bulbs. Where meat is concerned, Brooklyn barbecue tends toward dense, dark rubs and heavy smoke penetration, along with cuts that are fatty and flavorful. High quality, often rare and heritage breed meat is another defining trait of this new school barbecue.

Thematically, at least, the emerging Brooklyn style owes a debt to Texas with its by-the-pound ordering model and propensity for butcher paper, as well as to Kansas City for its agnosticism in meat and cut selection. Brooklyn barbecue also dovetails with numerous other contemporary subcultural tropes both specific to food (sustainability, craft beer, and spirits) and aesthetics (tattooing, American roots music, graffiti, et al). In many ways, Brooklyn barbecue is part of a larger cultural movement.

The trend of replicating different regional styles persists with restaurants like BrisketTown (Central Texas) and Arrogant Swine (North and South Carolina). Even here we find innovation: Tyson Ho at Arrogant Swine has created a form of Western North Carolina-style chopped pork shoulder that rivals Kansas City burnt ends (which use beef) in eliciting flavor. And if Ho’s contribution is pushing boundaries, other innovations happening in Brooklyn pits could be genre-defining. Take Bill Durney’s ribs at Hometown. He offers them both with a sweet and tangy Korean sticky sauce, or a fiery Jamaican jerk rub, drawing on the melting pot of cuisines in NYC and imbuing his barbecue with the local flavor.

It is thus fair to conclude that the state of American wood-smoked barbecue in NYC is healthy, vibrant, and growing exponentially. This growth is well illustrated by the fact that when the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party started back in 2002, the number of visiting barbecue establishments dwarfed the number of restaurants cooking with wood in the entire city. This is no longer the case: There are well over 25 restaurants smoking meat with wood in NYC these days, and more are on the way.

There's clearly a robust and growing market for real, wood-smoked barbecue in New York City, and that demand is at last moving us toward a defined style of our own. Someday, this city may take its place in the pantheon of barbecue greatness. How do we get there? Keep on smoking.

[Simply Red]

it's not about population or money - it's about knowledge and patience and pioneering.

[Amnorix]

Boston just got their first BBQ place worth a damn in the downtown area. It's excellent. I haven't been to KC of course so can't compare it to there, but I was surprisingly pleased. We have some BBQ places around in the suburbs, that take htemselves seriously and give good effort, but overall it's pretty meh.

[GloucesterChief]

Originally Posted by TimBone

Where do you go for your bbq in Houston?

I wasn't a huge fan of Goode Co. or Burns. There's a place just off the southwest corner of the 610 loop called Fainmous BBQ that we thought was pretty good. Although, my buddy went there on my recommendation, and he said his family enjoys my bbq better.

I'm basically open to any good bbq suggestion for my next trip to Houston.

Jackson St. BBQ right by Minute Maid is pretty decent, they opened up maybe two years ago so pretty new.

I am from Hampton Roads, VA though so my favorite is eastern Carolina style which of course no one in Texas can do properly.