‘Food & Wine,’ ‘Bon Appétit,’ the 'New York Times,' and ‘Southern Living’ recognized spots in Austin, Houston, and Lexington as the best of the best when it comes to dining.
Plus, a Netflix show featuring Tootsie Tomanetz, an Austin band’s wistful album, and a digital marketplace supporting local artisans.
Plus: are we ready for lab-grown barbecue?
Plus: Cananda misunderstands Texas barbecue.
The legendary Snow's pitmaster is still cooking barbecue for shipping, but the best joint in Texas has been closed to customers for a month.
Plus: The barbecue pit so long it required an official highway escort.
The charming, historic property is an ideal base from which to enjoy the area’s top-notch barbecue.
Newcomer Brett’s Backyard Bar-B-Que was a close second in the battle for smoked-meat supremacy.
The massive Bartonville barbecue and steak restaurant uses too much seasoning and butter, but the pitmaster knows what he's doing.
In the first episode of 'Fire & Smoke,' Daniel Vaughn tells us the story of one of the most celebrated—and humble—pitmasters in Texas.
When it’s on the menu at a barbecue joint, you’ll want to order this underused cut. Trust us.
For the third time in four years, the prestigious restaurant and chef awards recognize a pitmaster.
Houston and Austin got the most nods, but the biggest surprise is that the revered Tootsie Tomanetz of Snow’s BBQ is up for Best Chef: Southwest!
Since Franklin Barbecue opened, pitmasters have turned to the more expensive cuts of meat. And that's a good thing.
Welcome to the golden age of Texas barbecue.
This story about the amazing Tootsie Tomanetz originally ran in our October issue. We’re posting it here in its entirety along with a collection of photos from Wyatt McSpadden. He was assigned with capturing the essence of Tootsie for the story, which he did masterfully, but we could only run so
On Saturdays Tootsie Tomanetz cooks barbecue the old-fashioned way for legions of loyal fans. That doesn’t mean she’ll ever give up her day job.
Tootsie Tomanetz has been cooking barbecue for fifty years, an art she didn’t start practicing professionally until she was in her thirties. When she began her career in Giddings, offset smokers weren’t nearly as popular as they are today. Then, barbecue was cooked directly over wood coals, and that’s the
Not all briskets are created equal. That much is obvious to anyone who’s had a great one—or a bad one. Those experiences are easy to contrast, but what about when it’s not a question of good or bad? When it’s a matter of simply being different?I was struck by the variety in
Saturday morning—yes, Saturday morning—is meant for feasting on brisket and sausage at Snow’s, in Lexington.
Two weeks ago Cranky Frank’s Barbeque in Fredericksburg finally bit the bullet. They raised their prices for barbecue and posted a sign on the door explaining the change to their customers. Not two days later I received a question over Twitter with a photo of the sign.@bbqsnob
“Line are overrated.” This is the conclusion of economist Tyler Cowen in a recent article where he shared some of his principles for finding good restaurants. For Cowen, standing in line is a conformist activity, and the presence of a line is a not a good indicator of the
Every month we’ll bring you a profile of a photographer who has captured the people, the food and the spaces that make up the world of barbecue.Wyatt McSpadden – Austin, TexasI’ve been shooting pictures at BBQ places around Texas for better than 25 years. I’ve had the pleasure of
Pitmaster: Snow’s BBQ; opened in 2003.Age: 78Smoker: A steel smoker with an offset firebox for briskets, a direct heat pit for everything else.Wood: Post OakTootsie took her lunch break to talk with me while working her day job with the Giddings school district. After Texas Monthly named Snow’s BBQ the best barbecue
Kerry Bexley (center) at the Texas Monthly BBQ FestivalOwner/Pitmaster: Snow’s BBQ; opened in 2003.Age: 46Smoker: A steel smoker with an offset firebox for briskets, a direct heat pit for everything else.Wood: Post OakIt was Friday afternoon and Kerry was getting ready to start the fires for the pits at
For some in the small town of Lexington (population roughly 1,200), Saturdays are as holy as Sundays. It’s hard to miss these devotees. They congregate at the end of Main Street, within view of some grain elevators dressed in a gingham rust—a line of farmhands, ranchers, well-off weekenders, and groggy
Dear barbecue buffs, fans, mavens, hounds, fanatics, cognoscenti, nuts, addicts, maniacs, aficionados, zealots, enthusiasts, devotes, groupies, and lovers: Do you have a barbecue destination that you think is worthy of being on Texas Monthly’s “The Top Fifty BBQ Joints in Texas” list? Now’s the time to tell us! Next
Editor’s Note: The Texas Monthly BBQ Festival is almost here! Each day until then, we’ll be talking to one of the featured pitmasters, with questions from TM staffers, esteemed BBQ experts, Twitter followers and you, the readers of this blog. Today we bring you Kerry Bexley, 44, of Snow's
After driving three hours from Dallas to arrive in Lexington at nine in the morning, it’s hard not to suffer some validation bias no matter what you sink your teeth into. But it helps when it’s perfectly smoked and silky tender brisket. I invited a friend on a
The Observer newspaper in London has picked up our barbecue story from May 2008, where we listed Snow’s (in the Central Texas burg of Lexington, Texas) as number one in the state. On Sunday, Snow’s was included in the Observer’s fun wrap-up of “the fifty best things to eat
Thousands of drivers a day pass through Giddings along Texas Highway 290 on their way between Austin and Houston. They would all do themselves a favor if they stopped right in the center of town to sample the fine meats smoked at City Meat Market. This is a true meat
A small wood-frame restaurant, open only on Saturdays and only from eight in the morning until whenever the meat runs out, usually around noon, Snow’s is remarkable not only for the quality of its ’cue—“outlandishly tender brisket, fall-apart-delicious chicken”—but for the unlikeliness of its story. The genius behind this meat
