B.E. Scott`s, in Tennessee, left, special

B.E. Scott’s, in
Tennessee, left, specializes in whole hogs, while
at Big Bob Gibson’s, in
Alabama, above, the
pork and smoked chicken
share top billing.
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Forget apple pie. There’s nothing more American—
or more mouthwatering—than a meal of pit-smoked pulled
pork, sticky ribs, or tender brisket. Here’s where
to go for an authentic fix.
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america
by jj goode photographs by christian patterson
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Never mind politics. If you want to start an argument at the dinner table, bring up barbecue. No other American meal inspires such
long-winded debate and fierce interstate rivalry. And now that the
gastronomic icon has been co-opted by big-city restaurants and embraced by gourmands, it’s become even more of a lightning rod. The
fact is that plenty of places dump sauce on meat and call it barbecue.
Some, however, serve the real thing and achieve—through a glorious
alchemy of smoke, heat, and meat—something worth fighting over.
Here are 12 spots worthy of a pilgrimage.
TEXAS
Smitty’s | 208 South Commerce,
Lockhart; 512-398-9344;
smittysmarket.com
Lockhart has two other temples of brisket and sausage
(108-year-old Kreuz Market and
septuagenarian Black’s), but
the razor-thin edge goes to one
that didn’t exist until 1999.
That’s when Smitty’s opened in
the space Kreuz once occupied
and fired up well-aged pits
that produce unconscionably
rich, tender brisket, not to
mention juicy sausage and exemplary pork ribs. Ordered by
the pound and served in slabs
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as thick as the slices of white
bread it comes with, the beef
is unceremoniously presented
on brown butcher paper (a.k.a.
your plate). Smitty’s provides
sauce, too, but regulars don’t
touch the stuff.
Cooper’s Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que |
604 West Young Street, Llano;
325-247-5713; coopersbbq.com
Cooper’s engages in two practices that some consider antithetical to the state’s trademark
style: direct-heat cooking that’s
dangerously close to grilling,
and saucing. But this cowboystyle barbecue spot breaks the
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rules proudly, cooking meat
about two feet from mesquite
coals and then finishing it over
low heat until you step up to
the outdoor pits and point to
what you want: extra-thick
pork chops, sirloin, or beef ribs
with Flintstones-esque bones
protruding from meat riddled
with melted fat. It’s all charred,
pepper-flecked, and insanely
good.
MISSOURI
Clockwise from top
left: Sausage and brisket are the specialties
at Smitty’s, in Texas;
the pork shoulder at
Lexington Barbecue,
in North Carolina, attracts packs of hungry
devotees; a barbecued
bologna sandwich at Cozy
Corner, in Memphis; the
pork is smoked 16 hours
before serving at Big Bob
Gibson’s.
a national treasure that LC’s
humbly calls a sandwich.
LC’s Bar-B-Q | 5800 Blue Parkway,
Kansas City; 816-923-4484
Just a short drive from the
original Arthur Bryant’s, which
Calvin Trillin famously anointed
“the single best restaurant in
the world,” is this unremarkable-looking institution, which
might deserve that title for
the burnt ends alone. A sloppy
mound of L.C. Richardson’s luscious, slightly crispy chunks of
beef brisket come covered in a
thick, tangy sauce between two
flimsy slices of white bread—it’s
NORTH CAROLINA
Skylight Inn | 1501 South Lee Street,
Ayden; 252-746-4113
A swift, steady thwacka-thwacka
provides the drawling locals and
northern interlopers here with a
soundtrack to their meal—a heap
of pork that’s been hacked into
pieces with two giant cleavers.
The result—a mosaic of goldenbrown skin and pink, juicy flesh
served on a cardboard tray—is
why Skylight is the champion of
eastern North Carolina’s whole-
THE ULTIMATE
FESTIVALS
Here’s where to head
for a pork-fueled weekend
this summer.
DES MOINES
Great Pork BarbeQlossal
June 5–7
pork.org/bbqlossal
NAPERVILLE, ILLINOIS
Naperville Exchange Club’s
Ribfest
July 3–6
ribfest.net
WINDSOR, VERMONT
Harpoon Championships
of New England BBQ
July 26–27
harpoonbrewery.com
DALHART, TEXAS
XIT Rodeo & Reunion
August 7–9
dalhart.org
THE BEST MAIL-ORDER
Who to call when you get
a craving.
hog-style barbecue. The only
embellishment the meat needs
is a touch of vinegar sauce.
Lexington Barbecue | 10 Highway
29-70S, Lexington; 336-249-9814
In Lexington, where barbecue
is religion, Lexington Barbecue is church. Its congregants
bottleneck near the entrance,
hoping to speed past the front
counter to the wood-paneled
dining room, where they all
order pretty much the same
thing: pork shoulder that’s
been slowly smoked, roughly
chopped, and piled in a too-tiny
cardboard tray. Tinged red by
mildly spicy, ketchup-kissed
sauce, the meat is so superlative that you’d be forgiven for
thinking that the patrons bowing their heads before tucking
in are mumbling exaltations
not to Him but to proprietor
Wayne Monk.
TENNESSEE
Cozy Corner | 745 North Parkway,
Memphis; 901-527-9158;
cozycornerbbq.com
Memphis gets slagged for
being an overrated barbecue
town that’s more sauce than
substance. Cozy Corner is the
decisive riposte, a pint-size
Memphis: ribs, pulled pork
Corky’s, 800-9-CORKYS,
corkysbbq.com
Kansas City: ribs
Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue,
877-419-7427,
jackstackbbq.com
Texas: brisket, prime rib
Kreuz Market, 512-398-2361,
kreuzmarket.com
North Carolina: pulled pork
King’s BBQ, 800-332-6465,
kingsbbq.com
Alabama: ribs
Dreamland BBQ Ribs,
800-752-0544,
dreamlandbbq.com
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shop run by Desiree Robinson—
widow of the founding pitmaster
Raymond—that specializes in
amazingly tasty Cornish game
hens and slaw-topped barbecued-bologna sandwiches. Then
of course there are the spicerubbed, sauce-slicked ribs, which
Robinson manages to give an
irresistibly succulent bite.
Ricky Parker, who masterfully
upholds the often-neglected
Tennessee tradition of wholehog barbecue. Customers can
choose from various parts of
250-pound hogs that have spent
20-plus hours in pits over smoldering hickory charcoal.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Sweatman’s | 1313 Gemini Drive,
B.E. Scott’s Bar-B-Que | 10880
Holly Hill; 803-492-7543
Highway 412 West, Lexington;
If barbecue hounds had a motto,
it might be this: The more obscure and eccentric the place,
the better the meat. It’s a peculiar logic with countless exceptions. Sweatman’s is not one of
them. It’s between middle-of-no-
731-968-0420
When Early Scott, the founder
of this legendary restaurant,
retired nearly 20 years ago, he
left the operation in the hands
of his disciple and kindred spirit
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Unlike most spots in the Lone Star state, Cooper’s Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que,
above, in the Texas hill country, uses sauce, not a dry rub—but it’s a cowboy
classic. At North Carolina’s Skylight Inn the pulled pork, opposite, is a simple, sublime affair and comes with only two sides: cornbread and slaw.
Step up to the outdoor pits and point to what you want: extra-thick pork
chops, sirloin, or beef ribs with Flintstones-esque bones protruding
from meat riddled with melted fat.
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Clockwise from top left: At Cozy Corner, the ribs are rubbed and
slathered in sauce; the source of the flavor at Skylight Inn; a
chicken at Bib Bob Gibson’s; pork in a bun with slaw at B.E. Scott’s;
the cleaver’s soon-to-be-served handiwork at Skylight Inn.
where Eutawville and Holly Hill,
South Carolina. It’s open only on
Fridays and Saturdays. It’s in a
dumpy old house that owner
Bub Sweatman, who died in
2005, bought when he came out
of culinary retirement. Whether
the whole hogs—cooked over
oak coals and then broken down
into toothsome ribs, lush light
meat, and chewy, crunch-flecked
pieces of flesh—would taste just
as good in less quirky environs
is beside the point.
Bob Kantor, the man behind
the meat, doesn’t hail from
Kansas City or small-town
Texas but from Brooklyn. His
barbecue is shaped not by one
regional style but by his insistence that the meat see hours
of oak smoke and be served
sauceless.
ALABAMA
Big Bob Gibson’s | 2520 Danville
Road SW, Decatur; 256-350-0404;
see bigbobgibsonbbq.com for two
other locations
CALIFORNIA
Memphis Minnie’s | 576 Haight
Street, San Francisco; 415-8647675; memphisminnies.com
San Francisco isn’t the likeliest barbecue town, but lo and
behold, it’s home to a place
that serves slices of moist brisket rimmed with a gleaming,
blackish crust and meltingly
tender pork butt that could
compete with the best in the
country. It doesn’t matter that
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There actually was a Bob Gibson, and he was big, even by
the inflated standards of the
barbecue world. In 1925 he set
up shop selling pulled pork,
chicken, and the tangy, peppery
white sauce now standard in
northern Alabama. Rarely can
chicken, even by dint of hickory
smoke, dream of overshadowing pig, but after a three-anda-half-hour trip to the pit and
a brief baptism in that white
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BARBECUE
BY REGION
Exceptions abound, but
here’s a simplified
guide to what you can
expect in the country’s
barbecue epicenters.
sauce, it comes awfully close.
A tangle of pork, cooked for 16
hours and pulled into almost
creamy strands, wins by a nose.
ILLINOIS
17th Street Bar & Grill | 32 North
17th Street, Murphysboro;
618-684-3722,
17thstreetbarbecue.com
Mike Mills is the celebrity
ambassador of barbecue—he’s
parlayed his achievements on
the competitive circuit into a
bottled sauce, a cookbook, and
a small fleet of restaurants,
including three in Las Vegas.
But anyone who cries “sellout”
will do an about-face when
they dig into Mills’ brisket,
pork butt, and (especially) ribs
at the place where it all started.
The secret: a gentle application of smoke (from delicate
fruitwood rather than robust
hickory or mesquite) combined
with a spice rub that Mills
justly bills as “magic dust.”
Lem’s Bar-B-Que House | 311 East
75th Street, Chicago; 773-994-2428
Chicago’s South Side has more
than one estimable barbecue
joint but none that can touch
Lem’s. There are no tables; you
can either eat standing up outside or over the hood of your
car like regulars do, risking
sauce stains from the hickorysmoked, mahogany-crusted
ribs. Like those ribs, charred
and chewy hot links come
loaded on completely superfluous fries and topped with a few
slices of white bread.
TEXAS
The meat: The Lone Star state’s
most distinctive contribution to the
barbecue canon is beef—in particular, brisket patted with a simple
spice rub and cooked in oak-fired
pits. Purists forgo sauce.
The sides: White bread, saltines,
pickles, pickled jalapenos, beans.
THE CAROLINAS
The meat: In eastern North Carolina,
whole hog is pit-cooked, chopped,
and served with a thin, peppery vinegar sauce; in the western part of
the state, pork shoulder is sauced
with a sweeter, tomato-spiked vinegar concoction. In South Carolina,
whole-hog barbecue is most often
moistened with a mustardy sauce.
The sides: North Carolinians like
hush puppies (deep-fried cornmeal
fritters), Brunswick stew (a mixture
of beans, vegetables, and meat), and
coleslaw; South Carolinians like
hash made from pig parts and sometimes serve barbecue over rice.
TENNESSEE
The meat: The state is known for
Memphis-style pork ribs and pork
shoulder, pulled or chopped and
served with slaw on hamburger
buns.
The sides: White bread, baked
beans, mustardy coleslaw, a saucy
jumble of meat and noodles called
barbecue spaghetti.
MISSOURI
The meat: In Kansas City they
slather molasses-and-ketchupbased sauce on ribs, pulled or sliced
pork, brisket, and the local delicacy
called burnt ends (the charred
edges of meat).
The sides: White bread, sweet beans
studded with burnt ends, creamy
coleslaw, French fries, pickles.
KENTUCKY
The meat: The city of Owensboro is
the cradle of smoked mutton, which
is pulled, chopped, or sliced and
served with a thin Worcestershirebased liquid known locally as “dip.”
The sides: Pickles and burgoo, a
hearty stew.
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