6 new barbecue spots from Yorktown to North Carolina, for firehouse chicken and Texas brisket

Virginia is barbecue country — maybe even the oldest home to barbecue in America, according to Virginia food historian Joseph Haynes. And it is certainly home to a ridiculous density of barbecue, ranging from roadside shacks to drive-thrus to multi-room barbecue palaces.

But unlike the old-time pits of our neighbor to the south, the barbecue served here tends to come in a vast panoply of styles: beef both chopped and sliced, multiple chicken traditions, many philosophies of pork, and a barroom chorus of sauces rather than a church of vinegar or tomato.

It’s a place with its own traditions that nonetheless takes on all comers. And the sheer volume of 'cue can be hard to keep up with.

Last year, we focused on a new and welcome preponderance of Texas-inspired brisket in Hampton Roads. But as this summer comes to a close, we figured we’d check in on a broader cross-section of local barbecue spots that have opened in our region in the past year or so, pulling out a few of the most interesting ones. And yes, this does include a new-school smoke pit in Chowan County, North Carolina, which rewards a drive from Hampton Roads.

Here are the new bones to pick.

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Worth the road trip: Old Colony Smokehouse

802 W. Queen St., Edenton, North Carolina, 252-482-2400, oldcolonysmokehouse.com. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

At Old Colony Smokehouse in the scenic town of Edenton, North Carolina, along the Albemarle Sound, pitmaster Adam Hughes makes smoked firehouse chicken that will make you want to start a chicken farm and a fire department.

Firehouses and churches are the keepers of some of the most faithful chicken barbecue traditions in these parts, whether Dave Shirkey’s Shenandoah Valley chicken near Charlottesville, Delmarva chicken on the Eastern Shore, or the vinegar-and-butter-drenched chicken of Chowan County.

The pulled version Hughes makes at his 8-month-old barbecue spot is round and deep and tender, with a sneeze’s worth of cayenne and the richness of “a whole ton of butter.” He cooks it with wood in a pit out back, the way they do at the fire stations, and it’s good enough I cussed into my phone trying to describe it. The people at the world-renowned Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational apparently agreed: Old Colony’s chicken was judged second in the nation, at a contest most competition barbecue cooks spend their whole lives trying even to get invited to.

But the pork ribs might be even better: profoundly meaty, picture-postcard-pretty, pulled tight to a bone that nonetheless releases that juicy meat to the tenderest touch of the teeth. They come glazed with a sauce that balances caramelized sugar with vinegar tang. Hughes' ribs won prizes, too — this time scoring first place in the nation with a perfect score at the national championships of the Kansas City Barbeque Society. And that’s after Hughes also won first place in North Carolina.

It turns out Hughes' barbecue has won a lot of prizes: On the Food Network show “Chopped Grill Masters,” his barbecue also beat out all competitors in North Carolina.

Maybe the secret is the pepper-forward rub on his thick-barked Texas brisket. Maybe it’s the loose-packed country sausage he grinds himself according to his grandparents' recipe at the onetime C&J Country Meats. Maybe it’s the traditional Eastern Carolina pork that showcases the flavor of the meat, made with a little less straightforward acidity than his neighbors' down the street.

But after his years of winning barbecue competitions while working as a contractor, traveling 35 weekends a year with his smoker in tow, it’s now easy for you to make your own judgments. All you have to do these days is wander down to a former bait-and-tackle shop in Edenton and get a three-meat platter for $20.

Hughes will likely be the one who slices your brisket, picking each cut carefully depending on the exact lay of the meat, and setting it down next to a well-managed array of light, bright house pickles; smoky, coffee-tickled beans; or panzanella bread salad that’s like an Italian take on Thanksgiving stuffing.

If you’re running late, call ahead. They’ll sell out.

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Two things done well: Southside BBQ

1113 Poindexter St., Chesapeake, 757-543-5778, southsidebbqva.com. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

If you want to try Chowan County firehouse chicken in Virginia, you can also just wander over to a former flower shop in South Norfolk and get your butter-vinegar chicken still on the bone.

Southside BBQ’s Joe Josue is a South Norfolk native, best known until recently as the town florist. But he spent 25 years commuting to his flower shop from North Carolina, where he learned the ways of firehouse chicken and pig pickins from local farmers and volunteer firemen, not to mention a retired Navy commander and an honorary policeman.

When the flower business went south, Josue turned to his other passion, barbecue. He and his wife, Vicki, keep it simple at Southside, which opened last year. It’s takeout only, in a homey shop with a wood-grained ordering window and antique clock and mirror on the wall. There’s chicken, and pork, and low prices. And there are just a few sides, with terrific mac and cheese made according to Vicki’s grandmother’s recipe. (Don’t bother with green beans, and you’ll get slaw with your meat anyway.)

The firehouse chicken can come pulled, or even served on dumplings. But the signature is a dark-meat quarter of leg and thigh, lightly buttery with just a touch of acidity, a nice crackle on the skin and beautifully tender, smoke-pink meat within.

Josue’s pork is hand-pulled from bone-in butt, with a bit of chew but no loss of tenderness, and a noticeable but not overpowering woodsy twang. Josue prefers Royal Oak charcoal, because the wood smoke is hard on his stomach, and the simple, no-heat sauce he rubs into his pork sings with vinegar. (Want heat in your pork? Not his business. There’s Texas Pete on the counter.)

But the way you really want that pork is loaded onto a buttery bun, topped with slaw and a dousing of Josue’s own personal sauce, made with vinegar and brown sugar for a bit of extra depth. It’s a magical combination: tangy and sweet, with a little coleslaw crunch and a whole lot of meatiness.

The $2.50 piglet sandwich is already estimable. But if you get the $6.98 bigpig, loaded with 5 ounces of pork, you’re probably going to have to sit down for a spell.

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The Southern tour: Donnie’s BBQ

2129 General Booth Blvd., Virginia Beach, 757-752-9178, donniesbarbecue.com. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

Don Vaillancourt may have grown up in New York, but his time serving with the Air Force and the Army sent him all over the American South, wherever barbecue might be found: Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, you name it. And wherever he went, he picked up barbecue techniques and flavors.

And so at Vaillancourt’s 6-month-old barbecue spot in Strawbridge, you choose from a grab-bag of meats, regions and sauces: pork both Kansas City and North Carolina, Central Texas brisket, or sausages and ribs that might wander among the states.

The ribs, cooked on a smoker with competition-blend hardwood pellets, might pingpong between Kansas City sweet in the summer and Memphis dry rub in the winter, and his painter’s palette of sauces goes all over the map.

The North Carolina pork butt he serves actually picked up some flavors from Missouri: a bit of sweetness, mustard and vinegar that also comes pretty close to approximating the Tidewater sauce mapped out by meat historian Haynes.

Wherever that pork sauce is from, it’s good: low on spice but complex and sweet-tangy, with the kind of smushed-up, sandwich-friendly pork you often find at roadside spots in North Carolina. The smoked chicken salad is also best as one of Donnie’s Kaiser roll sandwiches ($7.50-$7.75; three-meat platters are $17).

The brisket is all Texas, with generous fat even on the lean flat, with thick bark and a long cook. It is, however, gussied up slightly with a rub that leans more complicated than the classic salt and pepper. And if it’s not quite at the level of Texas specialists like Dave’s BBQ about 15 minutes away — a bit pot-roasty for my taste — it’s still very good, a top seller in a southern Virginia Beach zone that rarely sees thick-cut Texas brisket.

That brisket also makes Donnie’s baked beans into a meaty extravaganza, a mess of umami and smoke that elevates them to some of the best I’ve tried in town.

But what makes Donnie’s most interesting is Vaillaincourt’s deft touch with acidity, whether on a terrifically complex Kansas-City-style mop sauce that goes well on the sweet ribs, a red wine sauce he drizzles over his nachos, that excellent N.C. pork sauce, or just the array of house pickles. In a savory world, Donnie’s is a place of brightness.

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Chili specialists: Alpha Pitt Smokers

2960 Hampton Hwy., Suite A, Yorktown, 757-782-2583, alphapittsmokers.com. 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.

Dang if I didn’t leave a barbecue spot thinking about one of the sides.

But Alpha Pitt Smokers were caterers all over Eastern Virginia before they opened a barbecue spot in a Yorktown strip mall last year. And so their sides and composed dishes turn out to be much better than one tends to require of most smokehouses.

That goes for a terrifically creamy jalapeno mac and cheese, and that goes especially for a smoked-meat green chili loaded with pulled pork, smoked sausage, beans, a needle of spice and acidity. The chili also comes as a main course, but frankly the portion is so big as a side you’ll get your hefty fill.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to try the brisket on our visit; it was running a little late that day. But among the standalone meats ($19 for a three-meat platter), the pork was a capable enough rendition, served by default with a drizzle of sweet tomato-based sauce. The sausage was excellent: a tight-bore grind with a delicate blend of spices that avoided the single jackhammer note of fennel that’s all too common among barbecued sausage. The barbecue chicken, in both forms, was frankly skippable, dry and grill-scarred.

But here, the food skews more interesting than basic meat platters. Alpha Pitt is the sort of place that throws barbecue into lumpia — a simple but straightforwardly wonderful idea. It also smokes its wings, and tosses its wood-fired meats into a host of stacked-up tacos and sandwiches. It’s a rare but welcome application of culinary ambitions in a barbecue world where such things can be rare.

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The very mobile meat trailer: Flavor Savor BBQ

540-209-6125, flavorsavorbbq.com. Check their page at facebook.com/FlavorSavorBbq to find the food truck’s schedule and location in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Norfolk.

Flavor Savor started in Harrisonburg seven years ago, a new project for a couple of competition barbecue pitmasters in the Shenandoah Valley. But for the past six years after he came aboard, it’s been Chris von Czoernig tending the fires and his mix of hickory wood and charcoal, serving up his food truck’s standby mix of dry-rubbed pork, thin-sliced and saucy brisket, and buttery chicken.

Six months ago, von Czoernig says, a business partner finally persuaded him to roll his food trailer down to Virginia Beach, where he and his wife, Staci, have become an immediate mainstay at local breweries and cafes.

All of their three main proteins are solidly executed renditions, and his pork is differentiated in part by the use of dry rub instead of vinegar as a base flavor; the brisket in particular works very well in sandwich form.

But what I tend to look for first are the specials.

If you’re lucky, you’ll find the truck’s pork-belly barbecue, fatty cubes of bacon that have been cooked low and slow until they braise in their own juices — seasoned with warm, earthy spice and rendered into smoky meat candy. Maybe they’ll be serving it plain, like lardons without the salad. Or maybe it’ll come in breakfast taco form, which you’ll have to show up early to get.

Or perhaps the pork belly won’t be there at all. Maybe there will be St. Louis ribs, or rib-meat sandwiches. Van Czoernig is also looking into rotating in Korean tacos with kimchi and quick-pickled cucumbers, or serving “swamp water” chicken quarters marinated overnight in vinegar sauce.

And even if they aren’t doing any of that, they’re still sure to be serving some sweet-sauce-slathered pulled pork atop a smoked all-beef Nathan’s frank. The $7 Moink dog — “moo” and “oink” — is like a grill-out and a barbecue together at last, two signal meats of summer on a single bun.

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Soul and 'Cue: P/Town BBQ

2876 Airline Blvd., Portsmouth, 757-956-6133, facebook.com/ptownbbq. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

P/Town, sandwiched between a hookah lounge and a furniture store on fast-moving Airline Boulevard, is a spot you’d have a hard time noticing if you didn’t already know it was there. And unless you get on the GrubHub delivery app or just kinda show up, you’ll have a hard time finding a menu.

But the food at the bare-bones takeout soul and barbecue spot — opened April 2 by serial restaurateur Jeffrey Mitchell — will already feel like home, as long as your home is in the South. P/Town is the sort of down-the-way spot that serves fried flounder and makes a specialty out of wings both chicken and turkey, with OK collard greens but sweet and rich yams that could carry a whole Christmas dinner.

If you look out back, you’ll see a hickory or cherry-fueled smoker tended to by pitmaster Lloyd Greene, who’s spent 50 years smoking meat in Hampton Roads, according to Mitchell. “We have a very seasoned chef,” Mitchell laughs.

The 'cue feels as homestyle as the yams. Your hefty triad of ribs ($10.95) will come shattery, thickly smoke-barked, and so messy and smothered in delicious sweet-sour-spicy sauce you’ll end up using a fork. The pulled chicken sandwich ($5.95) will be straightforwardly vinegar-sauced on a floppy hamburger bun, so loaded up with meat you’ll have to keep it wrapped in its paper to hold it together.

And the pork? Well, the pork sandwich is a full-throttle attack on your senses. The meat is lightly smoked, tender, chopped and layered with sauce that’s sweet and tangy and comes with a late kick that comes on like an afterburner. This sandwich, too, wants to fall apart, and only the speed with which you eat it will stop it from doing so.

So you’ll eat it fast. You won’t want to put it down, anyway. And that pork will be what brings you back here. Because once that flavor hits you, you kinda want it to hit you again.

Matthew Korfhage, 757-226-2318, matthew.korfhage@pilotonline.com.

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