The summer holidays are upon us, and this year Polly and I were off to Texas together; our 20th wedding anniversary was to be celebrated. Now Texas conjures one thing and one thing only in my mind: BBQ. It’s not so much a cooking style but a way of life over there and a lot of the brilliant chefs that have influenced and informed my cooking have been influenced by Texans and their techniques. Texas Monthly publishes a list of their best 50 BBQ restaurants every 5 years or so and the most recent in 2021 identified a definitive “new school” of BBQ cooking which I was very interested in. King of the BBQ world in Texas is smoked brisket, followed closely by pork spareribs and smoked sausage which all fall under the “old school” category. The new school is taking these standards and adding a little freshness and zinginess, seemingly often looking to Asian flavourings for inspiration.
But first, to the BBQ Capital of Texas: Lockhart. This small town, reminiscent of Hill Valley in Back to the Future is about a half hour drive to the southeast of Austin and boasts 3 venerated BBQ joints, all mainstays of the Top 50 up to the current iteration, plus a couple of others. Many Texans will know Blacks, Kreuz Market and Smitty’s Market by reputation alone, so we decided to start with these three, all within walking distance of each other. Each place works in the same way, more of a buffet style service than a sit down and order restaurant. You choose your meats, choose your sides, they are served on a paper-lined tray, and you find a seat. There are no bells or whistles. The first thing that hits you when you walk in is the delicious smoky smell, no doubt built up over decades. At Kreuz and Smitty’s, you walk in through the smokehouse, so you are also assaulted by the heat from the smokers which, given it is 42°c outside is pretty full on.
At Blacks, there is a lovely, homely atmosphere and the meats are really well cooked; the brisket has a lovely dark outer bark, a ring of pink showing where the smoke has penetrated to, the meat firm yet yielding. The sausage is good with a lightly crumbly texture once you cut into it. On the side we had mac n cheese with sweet potatoes; these were unbelievably sweet. If they have been used as a filling in a dessert, they still would have been too sugary for our palettes.
Onwards to Kreuz market; a 10 minute walk over the railroad track. The smokehouse is vast with about 40 metres’ worth of brick smokers lining the walls. Here the sausage is another level, really peppery and with much more of a distinctive bite. We tried the pork ribs, and these were brilliant. Succulent and yielding, the meat literally slid off the bone. They were served with no sauce, the rub applied before cooking giving the flavour. Special mention also to the pickle we got on the side which was deliciously salty and vinegary and was the perfect accompaniment to the fatty pork.
Brisket of the day went to Smitty’s Market where the staff were fabulously and hilariously grumpy. This is a real spit ‘n’ sawdust place where the concept of bells or whistles hasn’t even been considered, let alone consciously omitted. In contrast to the frosty welcome, the brisket was hot and simultaneously soft, crunchy and delicious. I would say the bark here was much more well developed which I really liked, whilst the meat was still pull-apart tender. We also had the sausage, which was great, but by now we were stuffed to the gunwales so packed most of it up to take back to the ranch.
On our way out of Lockhart, we stopped in at the drive through Chisholm Trail BBQ where we went rogue and didn’t order anything with beef or pork in it. Instead, we went for their chicken which was absolutely incredible. The skin was burnished a dark bronze with smoke and was delicious in itself; not crispy in any way but had a kind of gentle leatheriness which I really liked. We spent some time trying to work out how this was achieved – I think the chickens get brined for a day or so and then dried in the fridge before cooking. Should have asked them really – every member of staff seemed like a lovely person, proud of their restaurant and they all looked like they were having a great time. The meat was really well cooked and a great example of what smoke and live fire can add to a raw ingredient. We again encountered some, to us, mad side dishes including a carrot salad so sweet that it felt like my teeth were melting with each bite and corn on the cob which was literally floating in butter before being plonked on the plate.
From this tiny snapshot of the Texan BBQ scene, I can see why these old school places are falling out of the Top 50. The meats are the stars of the show; all 4 places in Lockhart did more or less the same thing, with more or less the same techniques. I guess there are some folk who can discern Smitty’s brisket from Black’s in a blind taste test, but the differences seemed minimal to me. The quality of the sides did not match up for us however. Mac ‘n’ Cheese is ubiquitous but tended to be a bit claggy and not especially cheesy. Vegetable dishes were incredibly sweet and, having sat on the hot plate for a while, tended to be on the mushy side and almost appeared as an afterthought. It seemed strange to me that a place can invest 15-20 hours in creating the perfect brisket, only then to put 5 minutes into swamping some corn in butter or adding syrup to carrots.
We first had a chance to sample the new school when our expat friends Bernie and Lyndsay took us to Loro in Austin. Loro describes itself as an Asian Smokehouse and Bar so I was really interested to see elements like yuzu vinaigrette, and chilli gastrique on the menu. I went for their Smoked Prime Bavette which came with a shishito salsa verde (shishito is a type of Asian chilli). The bavette was amazing. It had been lightly cured with salt and then cold smoked before being confited in beef fat and then finished on the grill to give a dense, dark crust. The meat was then thinly sliced across the grain with a dash of the salsa verde, which added a touch of much-needed astringency to lift the whole dish. An absolute knock out and one I made a load of notes about with the intention of recreating it – I’ll keep you posted. We also had their brisket which was cooked in the Texan way but came with the aforementioned gastrique; that sweet/sour French sauce which is basically a slight reduction of fruit juice or honey and vinegar. This one seemed to have ginger, lemon grass and coriander in it as well as the chilli and was a delicious accompaniment to the rich brisket; another idea I’m going to have a go at at home. Whilst Loro is a small chain of restaurants, and therefore seemingly not eligible for the Top 50, it did give a glimpse into which direction the new school of BBQ is heading.
So, after a road trip taking in Galveston, Rockport and San Antonio where you could pretty much eat anything you want as long as it was deep fried, we landed in Fredericksburg: originally a German settlement and home of Eaker BBQ, a new entrant into the Top 50. Run by a husband-and-wife team, Eaker is a place which pairs old school meat cooking techniques with Korean flavours. The best example of this is their Gochujang pork ribs where they are cooked with a dry rub, then glazed with a Gochujang sauce and blowtorched before serving with a few thinly sliced spring onions. The dry rub gave a great underlying bark, and the glaze added a luscious stickiness, and the onions a little freshness. Amazing. We paired this with sausage (great) and brisket (also great) and ordered the Korean cucumber as a side. This was really interesting in a not quite a pickle/not quite Kimchi flavour. It had great balance between sweet, sour and chilli and went with the meat really well. In a lovely moment, Lance the pitmaster gave a tour of his 2 x 1000-gallon smokers, plus it turns out he has a fire cage for private events which we both agreed was super-fun to cook on.
Our last stop was the one I’d really wanted to go to – LeRoy and Lewis in Austin who currently sit at number 5 in the Top 50. Instead of a bricks and mortar location, this is a food truck set up like the businesses at Digbeth Dining Club or Hockley Social Club for those of you familiar with the Birmingham independent food scene. Andy Stubbs (AKA Andy Low ‘n’ Slow), alumnus of both and one of the Grandest of Fromages of UK Texas BBQ cooking, cites L and L as a big influence so I was super-keen to see what they were about. And the short answer is, they are about quality. Their menu is relatively short, they only do certain things on certain days but, as their strapline suggests they are very much in the new school of BBQ cooking. I went for Beef Cheeks and Sausage, with kale Caesar slaw and house-made kimchi. Polly had the L & L burger, made from the trimmings from their briskets. The sausage was great, much like all the sausage we had in Texas, but the cheeks were something else. I have done them a few times at home, but never like this. Served sliced rather than pulled (I’m stealing this idea) they had a delicious crunchy bark and the meat was cooked to perfection. Soft, yet with a good chew they were pure sticky goodness. When paired on the fork with the kimchi, it was a perfect mouthful with the fermented cabbage offsetting the rich, gelatinous meat. Beautiful. Polly’s burger was also great, eschewing the Texan trend for smash burgers, this was a big, thick patty smothered with cheese and pickles in a soft potato bread bun.
What was great about seeing such a range of places is working out that creating great Texan BBQ is not the preserve of incredible pitmasters; anyone can have a go at becoming a meat alchemist by adding a bit of heat and smoke to big chunk of meat. Doing this at home is not such a daunting prospect and a person can achieve success on pretty much any kind of BBQ or smoker. One of the first things we did when we got home was order a whole brisket. I’ve shied away from doing them before because a lot of online sources and books tell us that it is a difficult thing to do, but now I have seen them being cooked first hand I really want to have a go. I’ve cooked loads of low n slow dishes before to great effect and can use the same techniques again, the only difference is that brisket will take longer. I’ll let you know what the results were like when it’s done.
Have a nice day y’all.
Live Fire Journal 