Texas Monthly picked its top 50 barbecue joints in the state, and new Fort Worth restaurant Goldee’s was honored with the coveted No. 1 spot. Ten other barbecue joints in D-FW made the top 50. But who’s missing?
The most notable restaurant, for me, is Heim, a company that started in Fort Worth and has expanded into Dallas. Heim “helped put this style of barbecue in Fort Worth on the map,” Texas Monthly editor Daniel Vaughn told The Dallas Morning News last week.
But perhaps that’s how serious — how competitive — barbecue has become in the Lone Star State. Heim made the list in 2017 but was left off of the top 50 in 2021.
Pecan Lodge is another barbecue joint that’s notably missing. The company started in 2010 in the Dallas Farmers Market and opened in Deep Ellum in 2014. It landed at No. 2 on Texas Monthly’s list in 2013. The restaurant consistently has lines in Deep Ellum and it still serves one of my favorite barbecue dishes of all time, the Hot Mess: a baked sweet potato stuffed with barbacoa, chipotle cream, cheese, butter and green onions.
Oak’d BBQ in Dallas was a contender but ultimately didn’t slide into the top 50. Its smoked meat might not compare to some of the Texas greats, but the restaurant in Dallas is doing what many other barbecue joints aren’t: serving stiff drinks in a fun atmosphere and selling impressive desserts. It’s 2021, and barbecue is about more than just meat! The Texas Monthly story gives Oak’d credit for its desserts in a special section about sweets. A second Oak’d is expected to open in spring 2022 in Addison. This one will have a brewpub. They get extra points for creativity.
Lockhart Smokehouse made the list in 2013 and 2017 but not in 2021. It remains a consistent barbecue house that’s accessible from several corners of Dallas-Fort Worth: Lockhart has expanded from its Oak Cliff original location to Plano and Arlington.
Smoke Sessions Barbecue in Royse City sells “one of the wildest bites of barbecue around” with its garlic parmesan ribs, Vaughn wrote in 2018, and I’d wondered for months if it would make the top 50. It didn’t, but it still seems worth the drive.
Smokey John’s Bar-B-Que near Dallas Love Field is a beloved spot that I would have liked to see honored. It’s owned by Juan and Brent Reaves, brothers who kept their dad’s smoked-meat restaurant alive even after the restaurant suffered a devastating fire in 2017. The owners received $100,000 mid-pandemic and were featured on the show Restaurant Recovery, which took viewers inside their sweet story. The owners also sell barbecue, turkey legs and innovative food like brisket brittle at the State Fair of Texas.
One of the themes of Texas Monthly’s top 50 barbecue list in 2021 is new talent: 29 of the 50 — more than half — hadn’t ever been on it before. It’s a “brave new era of Texas barbecue,” the article says.
Vaughn didn’t really discuss the restaurants that didn’t land in the top 50. Choosing 50 was hard enough, he says.
“There are a lot of people who I consider friends in barbecue who are going to be really disappointed by not being on the list. That hurts,” Vaughn says. “Everybody focuses on the people who are going to be so happy being on the list. The only thing I can think about are the people who are going to be really unhappy, sometimes crushed, not making the list.”
The magazine also included a list of 50 honorable mentions. Good news: Five of the six restaurants in this article were listed there.
Read more barbecue stories:
- Why Fort Worth is the barbecue capital of Texas right now
- Fort Worth restaurant Goldee’s named No. 1 barbecue joint in Texas
- If you love barbecue, save this link for all of the DMN’s barbecue stories.
