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Although the borders dividing barbeque territories are slowly beginning to dissolve, the fact remains that you have to go to the source if you want the best. Regional variations in techniques, cooking times, and sauces mean that opinions differ on what makes the best barbecue. But once you arrive in legendary barbecue cities like Memphis, Austin, or Kansas City, the options for meals are nearly limitless.
Top-notch barbecue can be hard to find if you don’t know where to look. There are a few cities with more than their fair share of real-deal smokehouses. To separate the different options, we’ve searched in each of America’s crucial barbeque regions to find a solid BBQ joint and give us the lowdown on the best place to score each area’s signature meals.
If you love the meaty texture and smoky taste of barbecue, read on to add a few more spots to your bucket list of barbeque meccas.
Arkansas takes its influence from all the states. While not having a particular style to its name, being located in the heart of the Southern Barbecue loop means that the state has a deep-rooted history of its own. Scott Moody of Arkansas-based grill-makers PK Grills has his top places where you can find the best BBQ in the state.
For your pulled pork needs, he recommends Craig’s Bar-B-Q in DeValls Bluff. A short drive west of Little Rock, people go for the pulled pork sandwich with ‘medium’ sauce, covered with a great slaw and served in a wax-paper wrapper.
Meanwhile, if you’re in a chopped pork kind of mood, take a drive to Dixie Pig in Blytheville.
We also have two more locations to satisfy your hunger. One in Little Rock, H.B.’s Bar B.Q., boasts the best ribs. The other in North Little Rock, where you can find the best brisket at a place called Whole Hog Café.
In Kentucky, Louisville especially knows good barbeque and is home to several excellent options. These BBQ joints know how to do it right by slow-cooking their flavorful meat and making the sides from scratch. You’ll never go hungry when you head to these BBQ restaurants that will leave your mouth watering because there is so much tasty barbecue in this city! Even though Louisville has plenty of good beef barbeque, you won’t want to miss out on its all-star pork contribution.
Momma’s Mustard, Pickles & BBQ serves Kansas City-style barbecue, which means they slow-smoke their meat and do it with a sweet, tomato-based sauce. You can also bite into the smoked pork ribs, brisket sliders, and smoked wings at Momma’s. Or head over to Feast BBQ and try the baby back pork ribs or pulled pork sandwich.
Texas’ most essential meats are the holy trinity of Texas BBQ, Brisket, beef rib, and sausage. Many will argue that it should be pork rib, but beef is king in the Lone Star State as far as most Texans are concerned. A colossal Flintstones-style bone-in beef rib is the essence of BBQ and reinforces the unofficial state motto that everything is bigger in Texas.
You can find the best brisket at Freedmen’s in Austin. A thick crust of black bark yet somehow not burnt gives way to the juicy and tender meat. There’s a small window for brisket where it goes from undercooked to a falsely delicate state of overcooked mush. When a pitmaster lands it in the magic zone, as Evan LeRoy does, it becomes the stuff of legend.
Meanwhile, in Taylor, there’s a place called Louie Mueller Barbecue and is known for its best beef rib. Initially offering short ribs, they’ve switched it up and now offer up enormous plates of ribs cut from the midsection of the rib cage, which give strands of tender beef that pull away from the bone just with a mere push of a fork. Red meat heaven!
When searching for barbecue in Memphis, you’re never more than a stone’s throw away from some pork ribs and chopped pork sandwiches. Memphis-style pork is served usually with a sauce that doesn’t contain all the sugar seen in bbq from other states.
To get a feel of barbeque history, taste the pork shoulder sandwich or pork ribs at Charlie Vergos Rendezvous. In 1948, a cook there added paprika and broiled ribs over charcoal, helping to turn ribs from unwanted leftover meat into a delicious meal.
You can also stop by Payne’s Bar-B-Que for one of the city’s best cut pork sandwiches, where they are made with smoked pork shoulder and serve with a spicy red sauce.
For the best ribs, check out Central BBQ. While Memphis is known for its dry-rubbed ribs, these ribs are some of the best in town, wet or dry. These baby backs are tender, meaty, and perfectly seasoned with just the right amount of smoke.
Some regions pride themselves on one main meat, but Kansas City is an all-around showoff! Brisket, ribs, burnt ends, and pulled pork are all cooked with a fierce determination that only comes from having the barbeque world’s most prominent critic, the Kansas City Barbeque Society, looking over your shoulder. Ardie Davis wrote the book on barbecue judging by laying out the first curriculum for the Kansas City Barbecue Society and has written six books on BBQ, including the forthcoming Barbecue Lover’s Kansas City Style. Here are his opinions on his region’s best-smoked meats.
For the best burnt ends, you should check out Q39. If you don’t know what that is, Kansas city locals have come up with this tasty delight. It’s a combination of beef brisket trimmings of fat, meat, and bark turned to lean, juicy pieces of brisket from the pointed end, 17 or more hours pit time, and then cubed, glazed, or sauced. It can be served as an appetizer, entrée, or sandwich.
Head over to SLAP’S BBQ if you’re searching for brisket. SLAP’S Texas stick-burner style of brisket is juicy and thick-sliced, with a slightly sweet Kansas City accent.
Plowboys Barbeque is where you will find the best barbecue pork ribs in Kansas. Although spareribs from the lower portion of the rib cages are the most commonly served, baby back ribs from the upper part of the rib cage are also popular. Competitive barbecue has guided a change from traditional Kansas City-style untrimmed, unskinned whole spareribs to neatly trimmed St. Louis-style rectangular slabs without breast bone, brisket flap, and bone-side membrane.
Even though the barbecue in Louisiana doesn’t have as long a history as barbeque in Memphis or Kansas City, New Orleans has more top barbecue joints than ever, thanks to all the tourists.
What’s unique about this city is that they incorporate Creole flavors in their food. Barbecue in New Orleans includes sausage, ribs, and plenty of sweet sauces.
Head to Walker’s Southern Style BBQ for a Cajun-style sandwich with smoked pork and Creole slaw on the side called cochon de lait po’boy. At The Joint, You can try the plate of pork ribs or the chaurice sausage, a spicy Creole pork sausage, similar to chorizo.
Alabama’s main contribution to the barbecue scene is in Decatur at Big Bob Gibson, where you’ll find their signature white chicken. Still, anyone from the state will tell you that they take their other meats just as seriously.
Myra’s Pit Bar-B-Q has great hickory-smoked chicken, smoked ham, and pulled pork. Miss Myra’s chicken is served with the creamy, tangy white sauce well known in this area, making it a perfect example of Alabama’s unmistakable barbecue identity. This sauce is usually made with mayonnaise, vinegar, and black pepper.
Another Bob to look out for is Bob Sykes Bar-B-Q in Bessemer. You can’t go wrong with the smoked meat for pulled pork barbecue there.
Archibald’s BBQ may be a modest, cinder-block shack off the beaten path in Northport. But you can’t go wrong with their mixed plate. It has spare ribs and sliced pork, grilled over hickory wood in an open pit and served with a tangy vinegar sauce that will awaken your taste buds. If you wash it down with a cold Grapico, you’re in barbeque heaven.
Sometimes eclipsed by its neighbor to the north, South Carolina’s barbecue scene is just as hog-minded and perhaps even more spirited due to the central part of the state’s love of mustard-based sauces. Charleston has plenty of spots for quality South Carolina barbecue.
At the Charleston Farmers Market, RightOnQue gives you authentic southern pulled pork, pork loin, ribs, and beef brisket simmered at a low temperature over local woods. It takes 12 to 14 hours! For pork tacos, you have Nick’s Original Bar-B-Q, and for pulled pork and smoked pork belly sandwiches, stop by Swig & Swine.
Meanwhile, if you want the whole hog, head over to Leesville, where Jackie Hite’s makes something every Friday that is unique in South Carolina. He first cooks the hog on a natural wood-fired pit overnight and then cuts it up into large chunks to make it simple for you to pick. By 11 am, he puts out the first half of the hog in a large stainless steel pan, and at noon he puts out the second half. If you get there at 1 pm, you have to eat from his generous buffet since the pig itself is gone. It’s all done in the German South Carolina tradition. Meaning, it’s done with a piquant mustard sauce. Try it one time, and you won’t forget it!
The landscape of North Carolina BBQ is constantly changing, but there’s still plenty of wood-burning pits smoking whole pork the old-fashioned way among the newly arrived joints. The state divides itself into western and eastern regions. The east focuses on entire hogs with a vinegar-pepper sauce. Meanwhile, the West specializes in shoulders with a dip that adds ketchup, tomato puree, and a bit of sugar.
Established in 1962, Lexington Barbecue serves an excellent chopped BBQ plate and chopped BBQ sandwich. Also, check out the chopped barbeque plates at Speedy’s Barbecue Inc.
While over in Shelby, you’ll find Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge. They are known for the mahogany-hued pork shoulder, pit-cooked over wood, and served with a tomato puree and vinegar dip. They serve it warm alongside the chopped or sliced barbecue.
Not to be outdone, in Ayden, you can find The Skylight Inn, and this humble restaurant would look like a bus station if not for the rough replica of the US Capitol dome on top of its single story. Pete Jones, the founder, had it built after a national magazine praised the wood-cooked, whole-hog barbecue as being among the nation’s best, meant to signify that this place was the capital of ‘cue if you will. Plenty of crispy skin and not much fat gets chopped into the barbeque. It is served either in a sandwich or on a paper tray. On top is a chunk of baked cornbread, and perched on top of the stack is a tray of coleslaw.
In recent years we’ve found that you can find a mean brisket or pork rib anywhere. But there is only one original, and California is proud to call it its own. It is the tri-tip, a red oak-grilled West Coast specialty.
For example, barrel and Ashes in Studio City has various regional barbecue styles, but their tri-tip is considered some of the best in California. Timothy Hollingsworth may have learned from the best, Thomas Keller, but tri-tip doesn’t present much of a problem. He marinates the meat with balsamic, olive oil, and garlic and grills it over red oak. Afterwhich, he shaves the rosy results nice and thin. Tangy pico de gallo, a Santa Maria standby, joins romaine lettuce and rosemary aioli on toasted sourdough to form a big open-faced sandwich.
Barrel & Ashes also has great sides like spicy pork rinds and a buttery hoecake that dismisses the traditional Santa Maria-style pinquito beans and salsa.
Memphis might be known for dry ribs, the Carolinas have come up with their own succulent spices, and Texas BBQ is just unique, but there are a thousand and one ways to prepare a delicious plate of BBQ. It’s time to drudge up an appetite and dig into some of the best places for BBQ in Oklahoma.
Visiting any BBQ joint in this state, you’ll find out just how true that is. From tender and juicy brisket to smoked hog that’s been drizzled and dipped in a sauce the size of Mexico, Americans know precisely how to put together the best BBQ. And, seeing as it’s located right in the heart of the South, the BBQ in Oklahoma is not just the best in the state, but probably in the country.
Because of the location north of Texas and southwest of Missouri, this state includes Texas and Kansas City-style barbeque aspects. Whether you’re chowing down on beef, pork, or chicken barbecue, what remains the same is that the meat is scorched on the outside, tender on the inside, and full of smoky flavor.
At Elmer’s BBQ, you can eat the Famous Badwich, a sandwich that contains hickory-smoked bologna, beef, sausage, and a rib. And try the sausage-stuffed pork loin or turkey, their specialty, and ribs at Burn Co Barbeque.
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