Best BBQ in New York City?

The Zagat survey is out for 2011 and as usual it has some surprising conclusions. Brooklyn's restaurants have stepped up in a big way, but none so surprising, is that Fette Sau has been crowned the best barbecue in NYC. I am shocked. It's been awhile since I've been out to Fette Sau, but to me, it barely squeaked in to the top ten. Looks like a road trip is due.

Some other interesting items from this year's Zagat...

• The Health Department’s new letter-grading system is popular, with 83% of our surveyors approving of it. (New York recently switched to a letter graded system for the cleanliness of restaurants instead of the old numbers based ratings)
• 42% of surveyors think that the government should require restaurants to reduce the amount of salt in their dishes, but 49% oppose a tax on sugary drinks. (the Bloomberg administration has toyed with requiring restaurants to lower the amount of salt in their food and the Governor's office floated a tax on sugary drinks this year.)
• 81% of surveyors feel it’s acceptable to take pictures of their food, but 64% say it’s “rude and inappropriate” to text, e-mail, tweet or talk on a mobile phone at a restaurant. (FANTASTIC NEWS! I always feel uncomfortable taking pictures of food in restaurants. Now I know it's OK and I'm not bothering the other diners. Whew!)
• Surveyors rated overall hospitality in the dining scene a 17, up from 15 during pre-recession times.
• The average cost of a meal in New York is $41.76, a marginal decrease from $41.81 last year. That’s the first decrease since the post–September 11 slump in 2002. (I don't see this at all. Maybe food costs are down in the upper echelon, but in the restaurants I visit prices have been creeping up steadily.)

Photograph of a Fette Sau platter courtesy of Pig Trip - Your guide to BBQ joints in Boston New York and everywhere in between. Not used with permission but I hope Pig Trip won't mind.

NYC's Best Barbeque

From Zagat and the New York Daily News....

"Fette Sau in Williamsburg, which earned 24 out of 30, offers the city's best place "for pigging out" on barbecue, according to Zagat. "That's nice, very cool," said owner Joe Carroll, who opened the restaurant a year and half ago.

The barbecue is so good, Carroll tells customers not to use a lot of sauce on his tasty meat - including such unusual offerings as pork belly, pig's tail, lamb shank and tongue."

Wow. That certainly doesn't match my experiences at Fette Sau. Do I need to go back?

Restaurant Review: Fette Sau

Fette Sau
354 Metropolitan Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718) 963-3404

I wasn't planning a trip to Fette Sau tonight, but a visit to a client's home in Williamsburgh made the opportunity too good to pass up.



I've heard great things about Fette Sau. My buddy Gary over at Pig Trip summed up his visit this way "Fette Sau has a lot going for it: good to very good barbecue meats with a killer rub, a rotating menu, a great bar atmosphere and a comfortable place to hang."

But I've also heard some not so great things about Fette Sau. Menupages and the New York Magazine gave the place good to great reviews, but the Times (that's the NY Times in case you are confused) and Gawker both trashed it.

I wasn't planning a trip to a bbq joint but I like to check out places for myself, so like I said this was too good an opportunity to pass up. I wish I had.

We arrived to an almost empty restaurant at around 6:30pm. I expected that as most of Fette Sau's tables are outside and it was one of the coldest days in NYC this winter.

We ordered some pulled pork($16/lb), spicy sausage($2.75 link), flank steak ($22/lb), and beans with burnt ends ($5 small). Since my client is vegetarian on hiatus, we also got a side of "Cora's Broccoli Salad" ($3.50 small). It all came with three different barbecue sauces, one worse than the other, and some outstanding potato rolls.

I asked about the smoker (Southern Pride) and the woods being used. The meat cutter told me that they use "a mix of cherry, oak and pine." Pine? I asked specifically about the pine telling him that I've been told since I was a kid in the scouts that pine wasn't good to cook over. He laughed and said, "yeah - but it's cheap." (I think he was just a joshin' me. I HOPE he was just joshin!)

I then asked if they used different woods for different meats and his first answer was no, but then he recanted stating that they might use different wood for the beef than the pork because they cook them separately. Then he added, he really couldn't tell one type of dry wood from another and they all wind up in the same pile.

Apparently all the meat cutter does is cut and wrap meats, because he called over to the cashier for the broccoli salad. She continued to talk with another woman about her latest date and some other guy who was something which I can't repeat on a family blog while I stood there and waited. Once their conversation was over, I guess about 10 minutes later, she bagged the broccoli and proceeded to ring up my order.

The sausage was easily the best offering, nicely cooked and juicy; but it offered so little spice it was mainly consumed by my client's 3 year old daughter. The flank steak was tender but dry and bland even though I could taste a little cinnamon in the bark.

The pulled pork had a very dark bark, but it was dry and tasteless and pink inside. I couldn't figure this out. Usually pink in pork signifies a smoke ring, but this was in a large chunk of gray meat that showed no indication that it was anywhere near the edge or bone of the butt.

My big question on all the meats - where was the smoke?

The beans were pretty tasty and totally devoid of meat, but the bay leaf was a very nice touch. Bay leaf is one of my favorite spices and I welcome its addition to most recipes. The beans had a very nice spicy finish, but they can't hold a candle to the beans at any of the top bbq joints in New York.

What can I say about the broccoli? Well, first off, I don't eat broccoli so I must rely on others for their opinion. My client looked at it and asked if it was cooked three days ago. I wish I had my camera with me, but my Lord, this stuff looked like it was cooked for three days. Pale, gray-ish and limp. My client tasted it and spit it out. She then said it was "disgusting."

Disgusting is more than a bit harsh, but I wouldn't put this place on my list of bbq joints for NYC. Maybe it was a bad night; but damn, it's rare when I don't find at least one meat I like.

So to steal an ending from my buddy Gary: Fette Sau is a bar that serves bad barbecue with lousy service. Go for the booze but eat somewhere else first.