Even we were shocked by some of the changes we felt compelled to make. And we haven’t even gotten to the wine lists.Īs you would expect at a time of transformation, compiling our Top 50 list was a challenge. Side dishes and desserts range as far afield as Big Red tres leches cake, blistered brussels sprouts, carrot soufflé, citrus-beet salad, and brisket fried rice. We’re talking bacon burnt ends, beef cheeks, birria, blueberry-and-Gouda sausage, brisket-topped elote, and guava-glazed pork ribs. What distinguishes the Texas barbecue scene today? In a word: surprises. That said, the upstarts have lots of new ideas.
Because they’ve been inspired by Texas’s long and storied barbecue tradition, the Texas trinity still dominates, and brisket has only gotten more popular (and expensive). In cities and towns across the state, new joints have been opening, and young, ambitious pitmasters have been getting into the game. Aspiring and veteran pitmasters alike visited them as if they were shrines.īut in the past half decade or so, we’ve begun to notice that the winds of change are growing quite gusty. They epitomized old-school Texas barbecue at its finest. That pair of enormously admired institutions captured the number one and two spots on Texas Monthly’s 20 lists of the fifty best barbecue joints (Snow’s also ranked first in 2008, before Franklin opened). Two of the many truths we held to be self-evident were these: Lockhart was the unchallenged capital of Texas barbecue, and Snow’s BBQ, in Lexington, and Franklin Barbecue, in Austin, were the best joints in the state. Places and personalities seemed perennial as well. The lineup seemed as fixed as the brick barbecue pits in which the meats were smoked.Īnd it wasn’t just the menu that was unchanging. The biggest decision diners had to make was whether they wanted ice cream with their peach cobbler. It was the sacred trinity of brisket, pork spareribs, and sausage, served with potato salad, coleslaw, and beans on the side. Just a decade ago, Texans took our state’s basic barbecue meal for granted.
0 kommentar(er)
