Green Spaghett Superiority

Bon Appétit loves this Lockhart joint on its Best New Restaurants list

At Barbs B Q, the spaghetti is green, and the vibes are chaotic.

Barbs B Q/Instagram

One charming barbecue joint near Austin has done it once again, this time making one of the top editorial lists a U.S. eatery can make: Bon Appétit's 20 Best New Restaurants list.

Barbs B Q in Lockhart was the only Texas restaurant to clinch a spot, but not the only one specializing on the smoker. It joins King Barbecue in North Charleston, South Carolina. The list was very international, and especially contains nods to Asian cuisines.

However, Barbs was the only spot credited with pushing its entire genre forward in its introduction: "Sticky ribs, green spaghetti, and barbecue’s next wave."

This spot garnered huge amounts of attention right away when it opened in May 2023. (For those who could swear it's been open for longer...we see you.) Most restaurants would not strive to be called cute, but Barbs' branding centers around a red-and-pink color scheme, heart motifs, and assorted silliness. Still, the food speaks for itself, and almost immediately landed on some very serious lists including ones by Southern Living, Texas Monthly, and the New York Times.

As the teaser suggests, one of Barbs' strongest suits is an innovative menu, which includes the lime-forward "Molotov Pork Ribs," fajita sausage, lamb chops, and vegan sandwiches. This short write-up by Elazar Sontag appreciates the youthfulness not just of the brand, but of the prodigious pitmaster. In fact, she receives the "Chef of the Moment" badge, which only goes to one honoree on the list.

"There’s excitement as people sit on coolers and discuss the 26-year-old pitmaster who’s turned the barbecue world upside down," writes Sontag. "Fresh out of college and working at Goldee’s in Fort Worth, Chuck Charnichart earned a reputation as perhaps the finest brisket cook in Texas. At Barbs B Q, whose cheeky name is inspired by Nicki Minaj’s fanbase (“the Barbz”), Charnichart goes beyond that classic cut and adopts an irreverent style shaped by pop culture, her Mexican-American upbringing, and the flavors of South Texas."

Sontag also calls out the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos-inspired sticky pork ribs and attributes the "herby" spaghetti to the Rio Grande Valley. "Where traditionalists zig, Charnichart zags and this state’s barbecue is better for it," he writes.

These words were partially excerpted from a story called "This 26-Year-Old Pitmaster Is Reshaping Texas Barbecue," which was first published in August 2024 and is linked in the September list. Bon Appétit also pointed readers to a recipe from Barbs B Que: a Pineapple Upside Down Cobbler using crushed pineapple and sour cherries.

Austin restaurants are a common thread on this list from year to year. In 2023, coastal Mexican restaurant Este also made Bon Appétit's list, and was again the only Texas restaurant represented. In 2022, it was Canje, with special attention to the highly celebrated pastry chef Tavel Bristol-Joseph. Birdie's was on the list of 50 nominees, but didn't accompany Canje to the top 10. Other Austin favorites have made the nominees list or better going back at least a decade.

The full list from around the country is available at bonappetit.com. You do not need to be a subscriber to see the list.

Whoops

Michelin goofs on a few restaurants honored in first Texas guide

Kau Ba/Facebook

Houston's Kau Ba has been removed from the Michelin Guide.

Texans' reactions to the first Michelin Guide in the state have ranged from glowing to unimpressed, but a few notable mix-ups are more concrete than differences in taste. The November 11 ceremony honored more than 100 restaurants across the state, but at least two were in error. In Dallas the guide confused two restaurants with each other, and in Houston one of them had closed.

Starting in Dallas: The Guide's release announcing the list of restaurants who'd won awards included The Charles, an award-winning Italian restaurant in Dallas' Design District, as one of 57 restaurants that earned a "Recommended" rating.

The Charles is a surely deserving restaurant that opened in 2018, the first concept from acclaimed food & beverage group Duro Hospitality, which has since gone on to open other restaurants such as El Carlos Elegante, Sister, and Cafe Duro.

But the Guide got the wrong Charles: The real recipient was Mister Charles, a sibling Duro Hospitality restaurant that opened at 3219 Knox St. in early 2024.

The Charles specializes in Italian and Texas-inspired dishes.

Mister Charles features French and Italian-influenced dishes.

It wasn't just an incorrect name; it listed the accompanying (incorrect) address.

A spokesperson for Michelin Guide verified that Mister Charles was the winner and said that the listing of The Charles was a mistake.

“This was an internal error caused by our geolocation process. The problem will be corrected in the most expeditious manner,” the spokesperson said. The Guide website has since updated the list and replaced The Charles with Mister Charles.

Having a difference of opinion about a critic's choices is one thing — but having an error of this magnitude is something else entirely.

And blaming "geolocation" as the source of the error is a curious excuse. Geolocation refers to the ability to track the whereabouts of an electronic device using GPS, cell phone towers, WiFi access points or a combination of these.

The Houston mix-up was also disappointing, but only involved one restaurant: In a press release issued Thursday, November 14, the Guide announced that it had removed Montrose Vietnamese restaurant Kau Ba from the list of Bib Gourmand recipients.

The reason: "Upon further investigation, our team has discovered the restaurant has been permanently closed since our Inspection team's visits occurred," the statement reads.

As has been widely noted in local media, Kau Ba closed earlier this month. The restaurant’s Instagram account now belongs to Alora, which is described as “a fresh Peruvian-Vietnamese fusion concept inspired by travels to Saigon.” It is expected to open soon.

Open since 2018, Kau Ba served an innovative take on Vietnamese fare created by Nikki Tran. The restaurant built on the notoriety Tran had achieved after being featured in two Netflix series: Somebody Feed Phil and Ugly Delicious. It earned considerable acclaim, including a spot in the Houston Chronicle’s top 100 restaurants as recently as 2023 and a nomination for Best Neighborhood Restaurant in the 2021 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards.

The restaurant went through a number of iterations during its tenure. For three-and-a-half years, Tran partnered with Aya Sushi owners Minette Corpuz and Bruce Kish to oversee operations, but they parted ways in February 2023.

In an email sent to Houston Public Media, Tran expressed regret over Michelin's decision.

“But we understand and respect Michelin’s decision to remove Kau Ba from its selection,” Tran said to HPM. “Exercising an abundance of caution from a legal position, I am not able currently to share further details of our situation but I do hope to follow up soon with more information.”

“Until then, on behalf of the entire Kau Ba team, we want to thank the entire culinary community for the recognition and support,” Tran added. “Kau Ba is proud of the dishes we created and look forward to sharing very soon what’s next.”

Thankfully in Austin, things seem to be going okay. The capital city swept the competition with seven stars (one more than Houston now that the change has been made), and two green stars for sustainability — in fact, the only green stars in the state.

Austin also had four of the first-ever barbecue restaurants to be awarded stars. Houston also had one.

Austin's winning restaurants were Barley Swine, Craft Omakase, Hestia, Olamaie, InterStellar BBQ, John Bates, La Barbecue, Alison Clem, and LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue.

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