America’s Favorite Cities for Barbecue 2016

When Dallas does something, it does it big. Big skyscrapers, big museums inside a big arts district, and yes, big barbecue. There are dozens of smokehouses across the city and its outskirts, each with loyal fans professing that theirs is the best. One standout is Lockhart’s, where the motto is “no sauce, no forks.” Diners use white bread and bare hands to enjoy the oak-smoked beef shoulder clod, brisket, and ribs.

Within the last decade or so, Motor City has rapidly embraced brisket, ribs, and pulled meats. The revolution came in 2005, when Slows Bar B-Q first started serving its YardBird sandwich: a poppyseed bun with pulled chicken marinated in mustard. This winter, Woodpile BBQ Shack opened in nearby Clawson, giving visitors a new reason to head out to the suburbs. Steve Coddington mans the pit and lets the meats smoke overnight. Any doubters of Detroit’s love for barbecue should visit during the July’s Pig & Whiskey Festival. What started in 2011 as a half-day fair has ballooned into a three-day bacchanalia with 50,000 attendees.

Virginia’s nickname “Old Dominion” might as well apply to barbecue, which originated there during its early colonial days. In the state capital Richmond, a slew of restaurants are helping to make the old domain over the smoked-meat scene new again, and T+L readers have noticed. Alamo BBQ (an awning-covered joint in the historic Church Hill neighborhood) serves slow-smoked pulled pork and chicken with a tangy sauce. And at Buz and Ned’s, meat marinates for more than 24 hours, making it extra juicy.

Remember the barbecue in San Antonio. Though it’s better known for a downtown riverwalk and the Alamo, this South Texas city has long bubbled under the radar as one of the country’s top barbecue destinations. That holds especially true for those looking for some south-of-the-border influence. At the new King's Hway Q & Brew, in the historic San Pedro Creek neighborhood, pitmaster Emilio Soliz serves tender, oak-smoked briskets with tortillas or in a Mexican-style torta. It might just be San Antonio’s exceptional barbecue that helps residents stay so famously friendly.

North Carolina is famous for its two styles of barbecue, which split the state into a ketchup-adding, shoulder-smoking western half and a no-tomato, whole-hog-smoking eastern half. This year, Travel + Leisure readers voiced their preference for compromise, naming centrally located Raleigh—where you can find exemplars of both cooking camps—the state’s best city for barbecue. Head to downtown’s warehouse district for a meal at The Pit, which specializes in eastern-style but also makes a mean western-style sauce. Opened in 2007, it doubles as a popular bourbon bar as well.

Americans are finally starting to realize that Knoxville, just 45 minutes north of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, warrants more than a pit-stop. The long-underrated city deserves at the very least a full day, if only to sample its barbecue joints. Like Nashville, Knoxville offers a smorgasbord of smoked-meat techniques. Archer’s is the place to go for Memphis-style pulled pork; Dead End BBQ for Kansas-City-style burnt ends; Sweet P’s for St. Louis ribs; and Full Service (a drive-through, picnic-seating restaurant in a converted gas station) for Texan brisket.

Music City’s superior barbecue skills may not come as a surprise. In the geographic center of Barbecue Country, Nashville takes a whole-hog approach to its cooking, and combines styles from across the South. At any proper smokehouse in the city, you’ll be able to find the vinegar-based sauces of the Carolinas, mayo-and-vinegar from Alabama (just an hour south), and Memphis’s sweet tomato sauce. Under the sauce is perfectly-smoked meat (usually pork) cooked in an open pit. In southern Nashville, Martin’s Bar-B-Que draws repeat patrons by roasting a fresh hog each day.

This Texas town, often overshadowed by its larger neighbor, Dallas, takes the crown for Lone Star State’s best barbecue. You won’t find much in the way of sauces here—Texas barbecue is all about tasting the high-quality local meats. Heavy sauces, if there are any, come on the side. Lined with wall-mounted animal trophies, cafeteria-style Angelo’s smokes dry-rubbed meat in a pit over hickory wood. Grab a foam tray and ask for a combo plate with beef brisket and pork ribs. You can also head to the state fair to sample amazing barbecue (and a few outrageous concoctions).

Blues City loyalists will take heart that their local barbecue has maintained its No. 2 spot. Restaurants here serve “dry” and “wet” ribs, either covered in a paprika-based rub or mopped with a tomato-based sauce while smoking. Both Memphis-style barbecues are a spicier, less-saucy version of the Missouri progeny. Head to popular restaurants like A&R Bar-B-Que for heaping platters of ribs, and consider timing your visit around the annual World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest in May.

For the second year in a row, Kansas City earned top honors for its distinctive barbecue. Beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and mutton come slow-smoked over wood and slathered in a rich tomato-and-molasses sauce. Locals take the fatty edges of pork and beef briskets and smoke them extra-long. The result, a flavorful, slightly charred cut dubbed “burnt ends,” is Kansas City’s gift to the world. If you can’t make it to one of the town’s 100-plus restaurants that serve barbecue—like legendary Arthur Bryant’s or newcomer Berbiglia’s Roost—popular local chain Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue ships its bottled sauces nationwide.