Grill failure? Here are five places to order great take-out barbecue in Miami
Miami is having a barbecue moment.
Throughout Miami-Dade county, several new spots have opened in the last two of years that have kicked up our region’s barbecue skills. And you don’t have to scorch in your backyard to eat great barbecue.
You can now order Texas-style briskets, spicy-sweet burnt end and ribs infused with Haitian spices for delivery or takeout. And there are new places popping up, as well, from a Kyu Asian barbecue chef to an expansion coming from a longtime Miami chef.
Here’s some excellent barbecue you can enjoy at home over a long weekend or any day of the week, if you’re still not ready to go back inside South Florida restaurants, which recently reopened dining rooms.
Hometown Bar-B-Cue
Brisket is the first item listed on the menu. More than a predilection for beef, Hometown’s is a devotion. The restaurant never uses anything less than the USDA’s rated Prime or what’s called upper two-thirds choice beef, meaning the marbling of the meat is higher than you’d find at the local grocery store. The wood-fired Oaxacan chicken is also a stand out, as are the smoked chicken wings dusted in mole and served with a charred poblano crema and the pork spare ribs.
1200 NW 22nd St., #100, Allapattah; 305-396-4551; Hometownbbqmiami.com
The Drinking Pig
Raheem Sealey, the head chef at the upscale Wynwood restaurant Kyu, created The Drinking Pig, a weekend pop up where he merged the all-day, relaxed nature of going for barbecue with a Caribbean vibe that makes this hidden spot truly unique.
Jerk seasonings are rubbed on the spare ribs. The aromatic woodsy flavor of all spice shows up in everything from the fall-apart brisket to the baked beans. The heavily spice-rubbed smoked chicken rivals even the exquisitely flavored and tender brisket. And even the traditionally Southern dishes, like the mac and cheese Sealey grew up making with his grandmother for St. Croix Thanksgivings, have their own brand of spice flavors.
More info: Orders are taken via Instagram, @drinkingpigbbq, and must be paid ahead of time with Venmo, Zell or Cash App. Once paid, the location will be messaged to the customer.
Bon Gout Barbecue
For two years, the partners in this business, Jean “BJ” Lucel and Wesley Bissaint, hauled their smoker and grill around Little Haiti to cook roadside barbecue true to its name. Their dining rooms were vacant weed-covered lots, the parking lot outside Lucel’s tattoo shop and weekends pop-ups at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex.
But as outsiders prospect for cheap real estate in Little Haiti, Lucel and Bissaint staked their claim. They unhitched their grills and anchored them to a storefront in the neighborhood where they grew up. And the neighborhood showed up for their American Southern barbecue with a Haitian twist. Ribs are barbecued for six hours, the brisket smoked for eight, a perfect pink smoke ring lining the inside of the beef. The rub, made with a mix of Haitian spices, imparts a deep flavor and a seasoned crust.
99 NW 54th St., Little Haiti; https://www.bongoutbbq.com/
Society BBQ
At The Citadel food hall in Miami’s Little River neighborhood, longtime Miami chef Richard Hales is experimenting with Texas-inspired barbecue, smoking meats and vegetables over hardwood. Hales became interested in Texas-style smoking, which focuses on using simple salt and pepper for seasoning beef, and has traveled through Texas to taste and learn the basics. The dinosaur-sized rib is about 1.5 pounds of beef that is always prime grade. The tender, smoky set of ribs are dusted with flaked salt to bring out flavor. But if there’s a crowd-pleaser of a dish at Society it’s the burnt ends. It’s the toasted ends from the tip of the brisket, cooled overnight, then cubed, braised in Hales’ own barbecue sauce and smoked again. It’s the very essence of the meat.
8300 NE Second Ave. in The Citadel food hall, Little River
Shorty’s Bar-B-Q
Shorty’s Bar-B-Q isn’t a throwback — it’s an original. And that’s why even as serious barbecue restaurants open in Miami, locals still flock to this reliable Miami favorite. The late Shorty Allen (who lived to 104!) sold the restaurant in 1980 to a group, which added a page full of options and other locations. But the dishes to order — and the place to order them — were on the menu board in 1951 at the location South Miami annexed from Kendall: chicken and ribs. And get the spare ribs, trust. The fries and onion rings are also worth the total destruction of your diet.
9200 S Dixie Hwy, South Miami; locations throughout South Florida
This story was originally published September 3, 2020 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Grill failure? Here are five places to order great take-out barbecue in Miami."
