Slideshow

Best BBQ Cities

Slide 2 of 21

< back
next >

Central Texas: Austin & Surrounding Hill Country

Here, it’s all about the supremacy of the meat, seasoned simply with salt and pepper and smoked over oak wood. Sauce is discouraged for slow-cooked beef brisket, black and crackled like bark on top and pink-tender within; spicy hand-cranked sausages (known locally as “hot guts”); and hulking slabs of pork ribs, heaped onto plastic trays with pickles and white bread. In Austin, buzzy Franklin BBQ’s Aaron Franklin spends 14 hours smoking his salt-and-pepper-rubbed brisket, which usually sells out in less than three. A classic institution built in 1924, Smitty’s in Lockhart is cavernous and dark, with smoke pits turning out remarkable fatty brisket and leaner shoulder clod, all served sans silverware.

Photo courtesy of Franklin BBQ.