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For all that barbecue is supposed to be a primal, highly approachable culinary language, it always strikes me, particularly in its regional American form, as one of London’s more reliable gastronomic hornet’s nests. Online reviews opine mysteriously about offset smokers, hickory wood and Carolina gold sauce. Subredditors disparage hyped spots and argue for their personal favourites. Men in clip mics drip sauce on their chins, talk about their trip to Memphis and endlessly waggle dripping lobes of meat at the camera. The abiding impression, after all that, is of a closed-shop scene where there are lots of rules and there is plenty of enthusiasm, but there is very little in the way of useful consensus.
However, there are increased signs that, as with other regional American food cultures – pizza, burgers, deli sandwiches – Londoners are balancing a degree of authenticity with a push towards something far more interesting, multitudinous and distinct.
At Cue Point in Notting Hill and Black Cactus in Walthamstow it is Texan pitmaster fundamentals infused with new-wave flavours; at Holy Smokes in Bow and Burnt Smokehouse in Leyton it is reimagined halal smokehouses; and at Uncle Hon’s BBQ, currently in the midst of a crowdfund for the opening of a first permanent site, it is Sichuan beef short ribs, apricot-glazed pork belly and other unexpected, Sino-American specialities. So what sort of state is the city’s US-inflected barbecue landscape really in? And does it really matter how they compare to the real thing? As grilling season properly begins, I went on a whistle stop, waistband-straining tour of three of the city’s more prominent spots to gauge the temperature of all things fire, smoke and slow-cooked meat in London.
Cue Point
My grill-hopping mini odyssey begins with a location that represents both the past and the future of regional American barbecue revivalism in the city. Though Cue Point founders Mursal Saiq and Joshua Moroney trace their lineage back to Smokestak – the David Carter-founded industrial-chic OG where they both met around 2013 – they are, 10 years of roving pop-ups and residencies down the line, locking into their own unique, Texan Afghan culinary vernacular.
This is very much evident at their first permanent location, Garden Bar Grill and Smokehouse – the enormous Latimer Road pub and sprawled beer garden that marks their most ambitious project yet. It’s the new home of Betty and Fatima, the barrel smoker and Asador grill that encapsulate their culturally fluid approach. “I gave one a white girl name so I had to give the other an Arabic name,” says Saiq, with a cackle, after stopping at my table to chat amid the swelter of a growing Saturday crowd. “That’s part of where the halal smokehouse thing came from. We wanted to open this place up to everyone, and play with the canon, without screaming about it.”
That sense of openness and play practically vibrates from the dishes that land in front of me – brisket and jalapeño cheddar sausage; deeply seasoned oak-smoked Wagyu brisket with a glinting, pronounced succulence; a fluffy “Texan naan”; and a raisin-flecked hillock of Kabuli pulao. “There’s gravy browning in that because it was the only equivalent my mum could find when we moved to the UK,” says Saiq, pointing at the rice. It’s a reminder that the enlivening contradictions, shaped by Saiq’s Afghan heritage and London life, are precisely the point.
From The Ashes
Stuffed enough to roll home, I instead hop on my bike and ride (very slowly) from a freshly opened spot in the west to a long-established favourite in the east. Launched during the pandemic by former Temper chefs Martin Anderson and Curtis Bell, what began as a hyped hatch window near the Olympic Park is now a huge operation – all graffiti-daubed shipping containers and steam engine-shaped smoker – that has occupied the yard at Five Points Brewery in Hackney since 2023. It’s a little after 3pm when I arrive but there’s a sizeable multi-generational crowd and the kind of building bedlam that only London sunshine can produce (one of my first sights: a bearded man incongruously dressed in an elfin fairy costume).
Food-wise, if somewhere like Cue Point is about taking Texan barbecue’s pit principles and beef-centric approach off in unexpected directions, then From the Ashes folds in other regional influences and occasionally cranks the surprise level up to 11. Recently, there have been 12-hour birria tacos, smoked half chickens beside Alabama-style white sauce and South American-influenced whole spit pigs on Sundays. Still quite full, I just about managed the Del Piero: a signature, sugar-dusted sweet doughnut, plugged with ‘nduja, pulled pork, crackling and chilli jam, and vaguely redolent of something co-authored by a bored bakery worker and the unhinged spirit of Elvis Presley (complimentary). Very mad. Very moreish. Very London-style barbecue.
Texas Joe’s
Blessedly, there was an enforced break before my last stop – a few hours back home to tag in for childcare responsibilities and lie prone on the sofa, sweating out some of the afternoon’s meat and IPA. Texas Joe’s (jerky-impresario Joe Walters eponymous business, set on a Bermondsey backstreet,) has operated out of this site since 2016 and rates highly with homesick Americans for its authenticity of product and environment.
Nudging in as night fell, into an artfully ramshackle, neon-lit room of twirling ceiling fans, Lone Star memorabilia, blaring old time rock and beefy armed chefs unwrapping salmon-pink parcels of dark brisket for a packed room, I got a big, pork-scented sense of this. Joe’s traffics in a Stetson-tipping, yee-hawing brand of theming that perches just on the edge of parody. But, by the time the food arrives – brisket with an almost damp softness, creamy band of fat and a profound riptide of smoky-sweet flavour; link sausages with a thrilling elastic snap; thick, slow-bubbled pit beans boasting a swell of appealing heat – you appreciate the serious culinary intent underpinning the larky Cowboy Carter decor.
Is Texas Joe’s the most authentic regional American barbecue spot in London? Is it Cue Point or From The Ashes? Smokestak or even Chiswick’s highly rated Lil’ Nashville? Truthfully, the question almost seems beside the point. In its original form, US-inspired open fire cooking is a product of geographical and social environment, plus the cultural influence of African American, Mexican and German communities. So it makes sense, after 15 years or so of tradition-honouring uplift, that the capital’s new-wave pitmasters have started operating within their own self-defined parameters; that the scene is being shaped by Brits, Afghans, South Asians, Mexicans and more. London’s barbecue is not breaking the rules so much as rewriting them. And, after a bit of a brisket-holiday and another long lie down, I will absolutely be ready to venture further and savour it all over again.
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