Trend: Haute Barbecue

Barbecue, traditionally a specialty of amateur cooks, has new devotees: ambitious chefs. Adam Perry Lang, who was once at Manhattan's Le Cirque, now owns Daisy May's BBQ USA. He offers chopped Texas-style brisket sandwiches from three sidewalk carts and a take-out shop (40 Wall St.; 50th St. and 6th Ave.; 39th St. and Broadway; 623 11th Ave.; 212-977-1500). At Smoke, Inc., Jim Neal, formerly of Napa Valley's Terra, smokes prime beef ribs over wine-barrel staves. The ribs are available from a trailer outside San Francisco's Ferry Building and at Taylor's Refresher in St. Helena, owned by Neal's partners, Joel and Duncan Gott (707-963-0206). Warren Norstein, who's cooked at Chanterelle and Bouley in New York City, smokes his pork spareribs for up to 14 hours for his Big W's Roadside Bar-B-Que truck in Pawling, New York (in front of 85 Rte. 22; 845-855-0454).

Published June 2004