Monk: Seoul Food Meat Company opened their second location in Charlotte’s Mill District in 2022 in a larger space that expanded on their original concept by adding a playground and a dog park. What didn’t change was the combination of southern barbecue and Korean flavors like brisket or pulled pork with a gochujang sauce, soy pork spare ribs, or Korean fried chicken wings.
Description: Seoul Food Meat Company in Charlotte combines Korean fusion, barbecue and karaoke.
Note: a version of this article originally appeared last month in The Smoke Sheet, a fantastic national barbecue newsletter that I regularly contribute to. For more information on how to subscribe, visit bbqnewsletter.com.
Monk: For this year’s edition of the Carolina BBQ Festival, while some pitmasters were new and the festival changed locations from Camp North End to Uptown (not to mention it was now part of the Charlotte SHOUT! Festival), not too much changed in terms of the quality of the barbecue served from two years ago when I went to the first edition of the festival.
Speedy: Well, here was one other big change: your boy Speedy made an appearance! I happened to be in town to catch a couple final Charlotte Hornets games as a season ticket holder and Monk’s Spring Break travels aligned with us going to the festival on Saturday.
On the drive in, Monk gave me a rundown of the scene (i.e. the pitmasters) before the festival, and I must say I was pretty excited about the volume of talent from all across the great state of North Carolina (oh, and the lesser Carolina as well). We arrived to beautiful weather on a warm Saturday, checked-in, got our wristbands for some refreshing beverages, were issued our silverware, and we were off to explore the smoked meats across Victoria Yards.
Monk: Elliott Moss made his third straight appearance at the Carolina BBQ Festival and while he is now under his own banner of Moss & Moore Barbecue instead of Buxton Hall Barbecue, he brought his ever-familiar whole hog. They may have been out of slider buns for us but with a few dashes of vinegar-pepper sauce in a cardboard boat this whole hog was reminiscent of the pork from Buxton Hall, of which we are both big fans.
Moss did give me a little bit of an indication of what will be next for him as he posted last month that he would be leaving Asheville this spring, but I will leave the details of the forthcoming announcement up to him. What I will say is that it looks like he is staying in the Carolinas and will still be cooking whole hog barbecue. More to come from Moss in the coming weeks and months.
Speedy: Walking up to Jon G’s Barbecue tent, I saw a heavenly site – a tower of beef rib bones – and I knew we were in for a treat. Beef rib slider with pickled onions on a potato roll? Yes please! The bar is high for Jon G’s and they did not disappoint. This sammie is what dreams are made of, and this is my winner for bite of the day.
Monk: I always enjoy catching up with Matthew Register of Southern Smoke BBQ at barbecue festivals, and for this festival it was a family affair with his wife and three kids in tow helping him serve some delicious smoked cheese burger sliders. Despite some issues with wood, Register more than delivered on this burger and was one of two non-traditional barbecue bites that stood out on the afternoon.
Speedy: I am on record as saying that any item that is not strictly smoked meat is secondary in the barbecue setting, but City Limits Barbeque made me question that stance with the pork belly hash and Carolina gold rice. I would easily eat a generous portion of this as a whole meal and might even be willing to venture to Columbia some time to check out the full experience at the James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef: Southeast, which was announced just days before the festival.
Monk: While they were out of consommé by the time I got there, the mini smoked brisket quesabirria taco with avocado salsa from Lawrence Barbecue was still one of the highlights of the festival for me. This was the other standout change of pace bite from the more traditional barbecue served throughout the festival. It’s also a nice crossover of Lawrence Barbecue with owner Jake Wood’s sister concept Leroy’s Tacos. Both are worth making the trip to Durham for a visit, or perhaps Wood’s upcoming barbecue festival next month in Raleigh, Gettin’ Piggy With It, another great collection of Carolinas barbecue talent.
Speedy: Monk had been raving to me privately about Sweet Lew’s sausage game for a while, so I was pumped to get to sample a link at the festival – and it did not disappoint. The sausage was flavorful and smoked perfectly, and did not crumble. The man knows what he’s doing around a sausage stuffer.
Monk: Phew! The Barbecue Bros attendance at this year’s Carolina BBQ Festival came together at the last minute (big thanks to friend of the blog Chigger Willard of The Low and Slow Barbecue Show) but thankfully Speedy and I were able to make it happen.
It’s such a great festival in large part due to the effort by Lewis Donald along with so many others. Next year, I can’t recommend enough for anyone within driving distance (or even beyond like in Speedy’s case) to make the trip to Charlotte and attend because there’s not too many other instances where you can taste so much good barbecue from throughout the Carolinas in one afternoon.
Name: Palmira Barbecue
Date: 2/4/24
Address: 2366 Ashley River Rd Building 1, Charleston, SC 29414
Order: Whole hog barbecue, hash and rice, beef cheek, slaw, and collards (link to menu)
Pricing: $$
Note: a version of this review originally appeared earlier this year in The Smoke Sheet, a great national barbecue newsletter that I regularly contribute to. For more information on how to subscribe, visit bbqnewsletter.com.
Monk: From the moment I first tried Palmira Barbecue at the former Port of Call food hall in Charleston in 2022, I knew pitmaster Hector Garate and Palmira were destined for bigger things than simply being one stall in a small-ish food hall (which has since closed and converted to event space). Garate was doing whole hog from locally sourced pigs, and it compared so favorably even after trying it right after spending time in Pitt County, NC. And just in case you aren’t familiar, Pitt County is home to such heavy hitter whole hog restaurants as B’s Barbecue, Skylight Inn, and Sam Jones Barbecue, all of which I tried mere days before Palmira. And yet, I continued to look back fondly on what I ate from Palmira Barbecue after that trip.
So it was no surprise to me when it was announced in late summer of 2022 that Palmira (named for Garate’s grandmother) would be moving to a permanent location in West Ashley. The original targeted opening date of March 2023 didn’t happen and in the meantime Garate went back to pop-up mode, both around Charleston as well as travelling across the country and collaborating with folks like Interstellar Barbeque in Austin, Khoi Barbecue in Houston, Bark Barbecue in Brooklyn, and Tropical Smokehouse in West Palm Beach, among others. He also helped out Khoi in the Texas Monthly BBQ Fest in Lockhart last fall. Needless to say, Hector Garate stayed busy while the build out of the restaurant dragged on.
As luck would have it, I happened to be in Charleston on opening weekend in early February and was able to check out the new building on that Sunday before heading back to NC. In short, I’m happy to report that the transition from a pop-up to a brick and mortar is going smoothly from a consumer’s perspective.
Whole hog barbecue is a “standard” at Palmira, meaning its always on the menu (unless of course they have run out for the day). Garate partners with fifth-generation farmer Marvin Ross to source heritage hogs from Peculiar Pig Farms located an hour away in Dorchester. That quality certainly shines through in the meat.
Beef cheeks are another standard, and they were not available for my first trip. This is not something you typically see even in new school Texas-style barbecue joints in the Carolinas. This tender cut of meat reminds me of brisket in the way they are aggressively rubbed with salt and pepper, but they are much smaller, much more tender, and have a richer beef flavor. At Palmira, they are a must order.
In terms of other meats, barbacoa, house sausage, and ribs are the other standards with brisket, pork steaks, chicken, and beef ribs rotating in and out of the menu depending on the day.
Garate told me in 2022 that he ate hash and rice daily and while I’m not sure if that is still the case, his version continues to be one that is worthy of that distinction. Next time I stop in I will be sure to try more of the rotating sides, many of which are heavily influenced by Garate’s Puerto Rican and Cuban heritage.
On this Sunday of opening weekend, the line was out the door well before opening but the line moved at a nice clip through the meat and sides line. The restaurant itself looked great, and a beautiful mural greets you on the side of the building as you enter.
For me, Palmira Barbecue was the biggest barbecue restaurant opening this first half of the year in the Carolinas and perhaps the entire Southeast. I plan to go back imminently with a bigger appetite. Based on what I experienced, it more than delivers from the jump. Run, don’t walk, to Palmira Barbecue in Charleston.
Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 3.5 hogs
Pork – 4 hogs
Beef cheek – 4.5 hogs
Hash – 4.5 hogs
Sides – 3.5 hogs
Overall – 4.5 hogs
Note: A version of this article originally appeared late last year in The Smoke Sheet, a fantastic national barbecue newsletter that I regularly contribute to. For more information on how to subscribe, visit bbqnewsletter.com.
Monk: In late October of 2023, Asheville’s Buxton Hall Barbecue officially announced that it will close for good after service a few weeks later on November 22nd, 8 years after bringing whole hog to Asheville’s South Slope neighborhood.
This closure came roughly 15 months after Elliott Moss, who was instrumental in the creation and initial branding of Buxton Hall, abruptly left the restaurant as its pitmaster. Chef Nick Barr immediately took over as Executive Chef for Buxton Hall in July 2022 until the restaurant’s closing in late 2023.
Moss started the journey that became Buxton Hall Barbecue in 2013 in what was originally called “Buxton Hill Barbecue” (note the i), which promised to bring “All wood, Pit Smoked, Pastured Whole Hog Barbeque & Heirloom Southern Fare” to Asheville. It was originally announced as a partnership between Moss and Rodney Scott, then of Scott’s Bar-B-Q before starting Rodney Scott Barbecue in 2017, which made sense when you consider that Moss has family roots in the Pee Dee Region of South Carolina where Scott is also from.
However, that original concept was confirmed as not moving forward a few months later in September 2013 via Twitter, with Moss starting to presumably work with the Chai Pani Restaurant Group on what would eventually become Buxton Hall Barbecue (note the a).
Buxton Hall finally opened in August 2015 to great acclaim, with Moss smoking the local, pasture-raised hogs from Vandele Farm in a North Carolina-made BQ Smoker situated in an open kitchen. In addition to the whole hog, Moss’s influence was seen throughout the menu whether it be chicken bog, a chicken and rice dish from eastern South Carolina, or waffle fries, harkening back to his time working at a Chic-Fil-A in Columbia, SC. The restaurant was an instant success, and soon it was named as a “Best New Restaurant” by Bon Appétit magazine. Moss wrote a barbecue book named “Buxton Hall: Book of Smoke” that was released in October 2016 and continued to be the face of the restaurant, appearing at barbecue festivals from coast to coast under the Buxton Hall Barbecue banner.
The success continued until the entire food industry was hit by the COVID pandemic starting in March of 2020, which began a period of challenges for the restaurant. The dining room was closed from March until July 2020 before a fire forced the restaurant to temporarily close and rethink its approach to smoking whole hogs indoors. It used the period to finish repairs and install new equipment, including a new Texas-style offset smoker designed and built by Moss. The dining room reopened over a year later in August 2021 and less than a year after that Moss announced that he had left the restaurant in July 2022.
Since then, Moss took 13 months to open his next restaurants – Regina’s Westside and a sandwich shop called Little Louie’s – but left those less than 6 weeks after their opening in the summer of 2023. He has since been working barbecue pop-ups under the name Moss and Moore Barbecue and has recently traveled to Texas to collaborate with Fort Worth’s Cattleack Barbecue. He is also utilizing his welding experience and is now building pits and grills as co-owner of the Velvet Moss Company, which recently released a portable grill called “The Priscilla.”
This unfortunately marked another setback for new school North Carolina whole hog barbecue. Wyatt Dickson exited Durham’s Picnic after 7 years and his other concept Wyatt’s Barbecue never opened in Raleigh after pandemic setbacks. Jake Wood has opened Lawrence Barbecue in Durham to great success but opted not to do whole hog and instead focused on a menu featuring all styles of barbecue in addition to oysters. And of course there’s Ed Mitchell, who recently released a barbecue cookbook but whose whole hog barbecue restaurant The Preserve still hasn’t opened in Raleigh.
In February 2024, the Chai Pani Restaurant Group moved its flagship restaurant Chai Pani into the space formerly occupied by Buxton Hall. With that, it officially closed the book on Buxton Hall Barbecue which for many of the past few years was the westernmost whole hog outpost in the state of North Carolina.
However, not all is lost in terms of whole hog barbecue. In March of 2024, Elliott Moss posted an announcement on his Instagram about his future plans. Unfortunately, after 17 years Moss and his wife Jennifer are leaving Asheville, a city which he’s undoubtedly had a huge impact from a food perspective.
On the bright side, Moss will be continuing in whole hog barbecue. While the details and location are not known at this point and will be shared “a little down the road,” that is extremely promising news because I adamantly feel that the barbecue world is better with Moss active in it.
In the meantime, you can catch him and his food at the Carolina BBQ Festival in Charlotte on April 5-6. Tickets are on sale now and it features a great lineup for the 3rd year running.