Finding The Best American Barbeque in Southwark as an American From The South 

Words: Maddie Agne 

Chasing the flavours of my youth was a challenge, but Southwark did not disappoint 

I was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee — the fourth largest city in Tennessee, one of the hubs of the American Southeast, a city that just grazes the formally recognized Deep South but is planted firmly in the Bible Belt. My mom’s side of the family lived almost entirely in South Carolina, just about four hours south of Tennessee, so I spent much of my childhood bouncing between the two states, learning Southernness while growing up with Northern (see: Minnesotan) parents.  

As I grew up, I learned that a major part of the Southern tradition is food — fried chicken, grits, biscuits and gravy, seafood boils, hush puppies, collard greens, sweet tea, and, of course, barbecue. Food is a form of love, a form of care and “Southern hospitality,” and a form of identity in my home region. Sure, your Mama can cook a catfish because she’s from Mississippi, but can she bake a pecan pie as good as your Alabaman auntie?  

My understanding of this identity took shape around barbecue. I grew up surrounded on all sides by families who all had their own generational barbecue recipes, by restaurants that could dish up pulled pork sandwiches as big as your head for $5. When I moved to London, I knew I wouldn’t have easy access to this kind of fare, but I wasn’t quite prepared to discover the differences even in the word barbecue.  

Here barbecue refers to a food event — a gathering of friends in a garden on the first unseasonably warm (10°C with light rain) day of the year, grilling burgers and sausages. Where I’m from, barbecue is a food genre — a meat, usually pork, slow-cooked to mouthwatering tenderness, smothered in a tomato or mustard based barbecue sauce (I grew up with tomato-based), served with a variety of sides like macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, and baked beans, eaten year round but most popularly in the summer (35°C with sun). 

While I didn’t necessarily trust that Brits could follow American Southern barbecue traditions, I did trust myself to judge their attempts at my home food. So, though the pickings were slim, I set out to test Southwark’s best representations of the flavours I grew up with, homesickness be damned. 

Starting at Butchers Grill in Elephant and Castle’s Mercato Metropolitano, a large market comprised of food stalls presenting a range of international foods. I ordered the pulled pork burger and fries, advertised as pulled pork on a brioche bun with cheese, lettuce, tomato, bacon, and rosemary garlic mayonnaise, all of which I have never heard referred to as a pulled pork burger but as a pulled pork sandwich, and even then I have never had a pulled pork sandwich with cheese or tomato. But, when in Rome. 

So, imagine my surprise when the pulled pork burger came not only with the promised toppings, but with cucumber as well, an even more foreign garnish to American barbecue. The cheese was a simple square of yellow that had not been melted, and the cucumber and tomato threw off the flavour of what was otherwise a decent imitation of American barbecue. The pulled pork was juicy and tender, and the barbecue sauce, while a little too sparing for my taste, was true to the tomato-based sauce I grew up with. The bacon was an interesting and not uncommon addition, and the fries were honestly some of the bests I’ve had in London during my time here but did little to elevate the experience to an authentic American one. So, are you saying that fries aren’t usually eaten with BBQ in America? The bun, on the other hand, elevated the sandwich to feeling a little too premium for the cuisine it’s imitating — much like the £14.50, or $18.74, price tag. 

There are plenty of barbecue styles in the Southeastern United States. They vary by state, but it’s usually acknowledged that there are four main barbecue regions: Memphis, Kansas City, the Carolinas, and Texas.  

Memphis is best known for its pork ribs and pulled pork sandwiches, usually cooked either “wet” or “dry” — i.e., either covered in a thick sauce or smothered in dry rib seasoning and served without sauce. Memphis barbecue sauce is sweet and tangy, most often made with vinegar, brown sugar, and mustard, among other ingredients. 

Kansas City style, on the other hand, can encompass a variety of meats including pork, beef, lamb, and chicken. Kansas City barbecue is also slow-smoked with a dry rub, but the sauce commonly errs on the sweet side usually with a base of brown sugar, tomato, or molasses. 

In the Carolinas barbecue is almost exclusively pork, with different regions preferring to cook either the whole hog or just the shoulder. It can be served in a variety of ways — shredded, chopped, pulled, and so on. Since the Carolinas style spans two states, there is no singular sauce that characterises the style, and they cover a range of mustard, tomato, or vinegar based. I grew up most familiar with Kansas City and Carolina style barbecue. 

And, of course, Texas. It is a massive state, thus covering a huge range of barbecue traditions. Most common is the beef brisket, but there are pork and sausage variations of Texas barbecue to be found. Texas barbecue is more usually cooked dry and served without sauce, but any sauce that is served is typically thin and sharp, favouring vinegar and mesquite-smoked bases.  

SECOND What followed was the East Street Caribbean Grill, where, when faced with the lack of pork offerings, I had the barbecue chicken with a side of coleslaw. Something of a slaw connoisseur myself, I was excited to taste some of Southwark’s offerings. The lowest-priced of my meals at £7.27 or $9.39, the grill was already leagues ahead in reflecting the barbecue of my childhood. The meal came with rice and black beans, an unheard-of accompaniment in my understanding of American barbecue, but the chicken made me utter a wonderous “Oh, God!” when I saw it drenched in perfectly red-brown barbecue sauce. I repeated the statement upon my first bite, overcome by the homesickness-inducing sauce and perfectly moist chicken. The barbecue sauce had some additional kick, but it was delicious when measured against the coleslaw that, while absolutely true to the South, erred on the sweet side. 

The rice and black beans had some spice but were otherwise very standard and somewhat confusing when presented alongside my truest hometown meal in London yet. The chicken and rice eaten together were interesting — they didn’t do much for each other flavour-wise, but created some textural interest. As I ate my meal, marveling at the fact that a Caribbean restaurant could offer such a true rendition of the barbecue traditions I grew up with, I contemplated that perhaps the stereotypical British sensibility for “less” or “bland” foods is what keeps it from achieving true American barbecue.  

American Southeastern barbecue traditions did not originate with the people that settled there, and any such claim would be an egregious rejection of the region’s history. While bleak and uncomfortable, it is impossible to talk about American Southeastern culture without acknowledging that it is largely stolen from the traditions and lifestyles of enslaved Black and other oppressed populations. 

It’s believed that Spanish conquistadors brought Caribbean food traditions north, referring to their style of cooking as “barbacoa.” Later, the first white explorers to meet members of the Chickasaw tribe near present day Mississippi witnessed them using similar cooking methods for whole pigs. The barbecue technique spread to the early colonies across the Southeast. 

Over time, enslaved people in the Southeastern United States would become the barbecue pitmasters of the region, slow-roasting whole animals over wood fire pits and fundamentally shaping the barbecue traditions we still enjoy and celebrate today. The traditions I grew up with, seek out wherever I go, and, of course, would find best represented at a small Caribbean restaurant in Southwark’s East Street Market. 

THIRD Texas Joe’s Slow Smoked Meats in Bermondsey was the Goliath to my David, the behemoth I expected to blow me out of the water. With a name that wreaked reeked of American exceptionalism and pure Southern grit, how could it not be? I went in knowing that I would be sampling Texas style barbecue — an American barbecue tradition I am perhaps less familiar with, but not incapable of judging.  

The restaurant’s interior was a slightly sterile rendition of an American barbecue joint, and I ordered the pork shoulder which came with a side of coleslaw. The portions were altogether small for the $20 I paid, and the slaw didn’t look promising, but I maintained faith in the added reddish barbecue sauce. I tried the slaw first which, in retrospect, was not a good choice. It was incredibly tangy and crunchy. Texas coleslaw is typically spicier than its eastward cousins, which excuses the tang of Texas Joe’s offering, but slaw should still be a smooth mouthful with a creamy sauce, not like the dry experience this slaw gave me. 

Nevertheless, onward to the pork covered in an almost too thick char that, when bitten into, proved to be significantly drier and chewier than my previous meals. Its flavour wasn’t necessarily bad, but the too-thin barbecue sauce still had to step in as the pork’s saving grace. The sauce was much more tomato-based than prior sauces, and it complemented the less flavourful pork. The entire meal had much more of a kick, which is reminiscent of Texas barbecue traditions, but in this instance, spice did not translate to deep, slow-smoked flavour. 

Southwark contains just a few points on a barbecue map — a map that stretches between the Caribbean, Jamaica, slave trade routes, the Southeastern United States, and beyond. Southwark contains points that oscillate between poor imitations and nearly authentic meals, each reflecting a differently embraced aspect of American Southern barbecue, but none quite perfectly recreating the flavours of my childhood spent licking barbecue sauce off my fingers and cooling down with sweet coleslaw in the humid Tennessee heat.  

Perhaps it’s nostalgia that colours my memories of these meals, or homesickness that prevents anything from being just right. I can confidently say that East Street Caribbean Grill came the closest, but it remains that I have yet to find the restaurant that perfectly recreates the flavours of my home. In truth they can probably only be found in my home region, because it’s the traditions and the history of the South that make it so unique, but it never hurts to try. And if trying means eating more barbecue, well… fire up the grill. 

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Featured image by Lauren Miller