As the final and posthumous episodes of his acclaimed “Parts Unknown” series air over the next few weeks on CNN, remember that the late great Anthony Bourdain once opined on the subject of smoked meats that “Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it’s a start.”
A rousing amen to that.
Myriad nations and cultures have their own evolutions of slow-cooking animal flesh over smoldering wood, but American barbecue and its various regional subsets is uniquely ours, a mix of art and technique akin to jazz or blues guitar, that’s just as revered across socioeconomic and racial lines. And while we are a depressingly fractured country at the moment, one thing is certain: everybody needs to eat, and few foods — save maybe pizza — arouse such universal passion and enthusiasm as barbecue.
Greater Pittsburgh has seen a bumper crop of solid-to-excellent new barbecue joints that vary in style and scale, but all have these common denominators: quality smoked meats, sauces and sides.
Bad Azz BBQ
For five years, Stacy Bradley and her father Scott have been grinding it out at farmer’s markets, catering gigs, pop-ups, and barbecue festivals — they routinely win the fan favorite vote at the annual Heinz Field Kickoff and Rib Fest. Since May (and through Halloween), they have a regular space of their own on Tuesdays and Fridays next to a former school-turned-saloon building that dates to 1899 on Becks Run Road.
Roy Scheider’s ominous warning to Robert Shaw in “Jaws” — “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” would not apply during a visit to Bad Azz BBQ, where their big honkin’ signature item, “The Boat,” features nicely textured pulled pork (it’s neither stringy nor mealy, problems that commonly befall an inferior product) piled onto a bed of creamy mac and cheese ($10).
Cooked over oak and smoked with fruit woods, their ribs are fall-off-the-bone tender with a Scott Bradley’s proprietary sweet sauce — which is also JuJu approved. The Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster tried Bad Azz BBQ on the last day of the team’s 2018 training camp and posted on Instagram that the sauce was “Lit.”
1000 Becks Run Road, Arlington — Dan Gigler
Freakin Rican
It’s easy to miss Freakin Rican BBQ on Greensburg Pike in Wilkins because there is no sign indicating its existence. But it would be a shame not to stop by the stand in Bob Lounge’s parking lot and pick up Fernando Rios’ American-Caribbean barbecue that has a touch of hardwood smoke.
Mr. Rios — he has a Puerto Rican father, American mother and an “aunty” from Jamaica — prepares foods that he grew up on such as the Puerto Rican-style pork ribs and shoulder and a tangy and sweet-but-not-saccharine-sweet pulled pork in a sub ($6).
His Jamaican red curry chicken ($10), which is punctuated with ginger, paprika, a hint of Scotch bonnet pepper and annatto seed that imparts the bright color, looks fiery but tastes a lot milder. And the crisply skinned meat is absurdly tender.
However stuffed you might be, save a spot for the smoked and creamy mac ’n’ cheese made with farfalle pasta, smoked pepper jack cheese and smoked chilies. The beauty is you can taste the chilies without the burn.
The stand is open from 2 to 7 p.m. on Sundays through the end of October.
944 Greensburg Pike, Wilkins — Arthi Subramaniam
Mitch’s BBQ
American South meets Southeast Asia in interesting ways at Mitchell Evanitsky’s namesake North Hills barbecue shack.
Mr. Evanitsky, who is a dead ringer for rock icon Bob Seger, has been a fixture on the local food scene for more than a quarter-century making ice cream and smoking meats. He’s had a shop before, but has mostly focused on his catering and food truck business in recent years, until he and his son Justin opened a new place in April.
All the traditional cuts and fixins are there — ribs, pulled pork, mac and cheese, beans — but so are some novel and tasty menu items that incorporate their barbecue, like a bowl of ramen noodles ($10) with hard boiled egg, baby bok choy and choice of brisket, pork belly or pork shoulder. Or, Asian steamed buns with smoked pork belly ($7).
And, do not leave without trying a piece of the sweet potato corn bread ($1), that’s as sweet and moist as a slice of cake.
16070 Perry Highway, Marshall — Dan Gigler
Spork Pit
In an itinerant career that’s taken him to kitchens across this country and the Caribbean, there is nary a food style that Christian Frangiadis hasn’t conquered: Italian, Peruvian, French and American Southwest to name a few.
But barbecue was a new frontier for the journeyman chef, and after he opened his upscale Spork restaurant in 2016, he set about to be a student of the smoke. He traveled to Austin to learn the ways of Texas barbecue and purchased a behemoth custom-made smoker from Houston. Last summer he did barbecue pop-ups behind the restaurant and last month officially opened Spork Pit, just down the street in a partnership with Kevin Fisher, whose family has owned the nearby Penn-Aiken Dairy since it opened in 1983.
Greens are light and tangy and mac and cheese is silky with hints of roasted garlic (both $5). A Turkey Devonshire features juicy smoked turkey and bacon between a buttery brioche bun that tastes more like a biscuit ($13). The brisket is note perfect, flavored by the smoky plumes of hickory and cherry wood ($28 per pound). But the best item may well be the smoked sausage ($20 per pound), a housemade pork and beef blend, with cheddar cheese and cumin and garlic. The casing pops with worth-the-trip flavor.
5349 Penn Ave., Garfield — Dan Gigler
Sugar and Smoke
It would be wildly inaccurate and downright pigeonholing to label Andrea Robinson’s new Bloomfield spot simply as a barbecue joint.
Not-even two weeks old, this full-scale restaurant is off to a great start, with a broad menu of well-executed pan-southern cuisine by chef Chaz Smith that includes etouffee, hot chicken, po’ boys, some particularly good fried-green tomatoes, and a She-crab bisque that this writer could consume by the gallon.
But it can’t be southern without BBQ and to that end Sugar and Smoke’s 19-hour slow-smoked brisket is pillowy and fatty and is complimented by an excellent Alabama white sauce with sharp and tart notes of horseradish ($21). There’s also a tangy BBQ meatloaf with a nice, crumbly consistency, served over roasted garlic mashed potatoes ($16).
4501 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield — Dan Gigler
Walter’s BBQ
By virtue of frequently working distinctly opposite schedules, my better half and I routinely communicate with the written word via succinct post-it and dry erase notes like: “Dog needs fed” or “Trash tonight!”
So it was with some amusement that I woke up Sunday morning to find a veritable tome scribbled with a Sharpie on a brown paper take-out bag.
Holy [heck!] What was this BBQ?! Sooo good! Mac N Cheese (I judge a place by their mac n chz) delicious. Everything tender & flavorful. We need to have more. P.S. Hope you left this for me!! :-)
That was Frau Munch’s report on the leftovers that I did indeed leave for her following my Saturday visit to Walter’s in Lawrenceville, one of the most anticipated new restaurants of the summer. Joel Bolden and Chris Morgan, the dynamic Gotham duo behind acclaimed Morgan’s Brooklyn Barbecue, bring their New York spin on Texas BBQ from Flatbush Avenue to Butler Street.
The former used car lot provides ample space for a massive outdoor patio, and it’s been filled since their Aug. 31 opening, where patrons have packed the place for fatty brisket ($26 per pound) that nearly liquifies on the lingual papillae, delicate pork ribs with a piquantly peppery bark ($20 per pound) and mac and cheese with New York state cheddar, bechamel and garlic bread crumbs.
Welcome to Pittsburgh yinz — not youze — guys.
4501 Butler St., Lawrenceville — Dan Gigler
Dan Gigler: dgigler@post-gazette.com; Twitter @gigs412; Arthi Subramaniam: aubramaniam@post-gazette; Twitter @arthisub
First Published: September 27, 2018, 9:30 a.m.
