Slab

"The guy behind Slab started out as a secret pop-up in his Studio City driveway (that he called Trudy’s Underground BBQ) and is now operating inside a shiny space on 3rd Street in Beverly Grove. The order-at-the-counter space is casual and straightforward, and the BBQ is certainly some of the best you’ll find in central LA. Most people are here for the brisket, but it’s the spare ribs that keep us coming back. Be sure to throw in a side order of creamy mac and cheese and twice-cooked potato casserole. The guy behind Slab started out as a secret pop-up in his Studio City driveway (that he called Trudy’s Underground BBQ) and is now operating inside a shiny space on 3rd Street in Beverly Grove. The order-at-the-counter space is casual and straightforward, and the BBQ is certainly some of the best you’ll find in central LA. Most people are here for the brisket, but it’s the spare ribs that keep us coming back. Be sure to throw in a side order of creamy mac and cheese and twice-cooked potato casserole. Much like our style in the eighth grade, A’s BBQ refuses to adhere to any one label. Masters in craft BBQ, smash burgers, and fried chicken sandwiches, you’ll find them slinging ribs that taste like tamarind one weekend, then super-thin patties injected with birria consommé the next, with Chicano flavors at the heart of all of it. This is Los Angeles cooking at its peak." - Brant Cox, Kat Hong, Arden Shore

"Burt Bakman and his Slab team serve up some of LA’s top barbecue, starting from a trailer in a backyard and moving on to become a top player in the smoked meat scene. Stop by for Monday pastrami, all-the-time brisket, smoked chicken, and ribs two ways. There are big expansion plans too, starting with the Valley and Pasadena." - Farley Elliott

"Burt Bakman and his Slab team serve up some of LA’s top barbecue, starting from a trailer in a backyard and moving on to become a top player in the smoked meat scene. Stop by for Monday pastrami, all-the-time brisket, smoked chicken, and ribs two ways. There are big expansion plans too, starting with the Valley and Pasadena." - Farley Elliott

"Slab Barbecue is serving handy and reasonably priced barbecue packages for the big game on Sunday, including a $300 Half Time package that serves 20 people with barbecue or smoked wings, jalapeno cheddar sausages, brisket, ribs, sides, and more. A larger Lombardi Trophy package feeds 30 people for $400." - Matthew Kang

"Chef and owner of Los Angeles restaurant Slab Barbecue, Burt Bakman, is trying to catch the city’s reputation for barbecue up to the likes of southern states like Texas. 'The LA barbecue scene is really at its infancy,' he says. 'The type of barbecue culture that they have in Texas, they don’t have here. There’s no reason why California cannot become its own barbecue region.' Slab serves all the barbecue classics: spare ribs, smoked chicken, brisket, brisket burgers, and sides like mac and cheese. But Bakman embraces experimentation. 'Around Texas, you go around different places, you see a lot of people are really doing things the same,' says Bakman. 'We change it up, we find some kind of a spice, we’ll introduce it, we’ll try something here that we like. We’re not married to one thing.' Slab also deviates from tradition by operating as a steakhouse in the evenings, where a standout dish is a steak au poivre with a pepper sauce. Bakman covers a piece of Australian wagyu with the same rub that goes on the brisket and puts it in the smoker, until it’s around 115 degrees, letting it rest before he puts it on the grill. He then puts the steak on the grill above some hot charcoal, cooking it to around 125 degrees, until it’s soft. To serve it, he puts down a layer of a pepper sauce he made and puts cut up slices of the steak on top of the sauce with french fries around it. 'This dish is where we want to see our place go moving forward, playing with more fire, playing with more meat,' says Bakman. The next step is to create a unique seasoning for the restaurant’s steaks. 'We have so many different ideas for different things that we want to do,' says Bakman. 'Something different that will excite our usual guests, our neighbors, our friends, for them to come and have a different experience.' Barbecue in LA is not without its challenges, though. For instance, the municipality does not allow Slab to have more than one small smoker, which means the restaurant’s chefs are on a tight rotation of putting ribs in the smoker, then chicken, and then the brisket, all back to back; they get started around 7 a.m. to be ready for the 11:30 a.m. service. 'We have to go in shifts. We only have one small smoker, that’s all we can work with,' says Bakman. 'So, it’s either this or no barbecue.'" - Avery Dalal