For years, I’ve said that one of my only complaints about California is the lack of real Southern BBQ. This weekend, thankfully, I was proven wrong. A few weeks ago I was in Calistoga filming and on the way out of town, the smell hit me. It smelled like real BBQ but I didn’t pull over. I did make a mental note that I needed to know more. Normally, when I do this, I get stoned and forget, but this place was different; something about it told me to try it out and that it was worth my time.
Yes, California has BBQ.
Yes, it’s good, but it’s not Southern style, it’s California style. I’m not knocking it but given that I grew up in Virginia and my Brother was an award-winning BBQ Chef, I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to this. Not only have I done a film where we built a brick pit and cooked a whole pig, I wrote a Southern Cookbook as a love letter to a cuisine that is criminally overlooked and disrespected. Real Southern BBQ is not made on a pellet smoker; it’s slow-cooked by people who know how to use real wood and move the coals. Those of us who have spent nights staying up to tend the pit understand this, you can’t bottle it, you can’t fake it.
I’m an asshole.
Yes, before I went, I looked the place up and read the Chef’s bio, all of which checked out, but that wasn’t enough. Yesterday morning, despite being on vacation, I woke up at 6 AM, stumbled out of my hotel, got coffee and took a walk to the place to get a feel for the spot. The very first thing I noticed was the large containers of wood right next to a large open pit. This was looking promising….
I had to make sure…
“Hey man, this smells amazing, where do you get your meat?” I asked the guy at the Pit. They use Golden Gate Meats. “What about paper goods?” I asked, holding my breath and praying he didn’t crush my hopes for the place. When he said US Foods, I had to double-check. “So you don’t use Sysco at all?” and he looked at me, insulted, which sealed the deal. “Hell no we don’t use em.” he replied. We both understood and I told him I’d definitely be back for lunch.
It’s a weird scene….
You have bikers and wine tasters (day drinkers) in their Sunday best and they’re all in line together waiting to place their order. I kept it simple, I got the pulled pork with sauce on the side. I wanted to taste the meat and make sure that Buster knew how to cook pork and wasn’t just covering garbage with an overpowering sauce like countless other places do. The meat should be able to hold its own without a sauce if you do it right. If your Pork Butt doesn’t live up to standard, I’m not going to waste my time trying anything else. If the pork is on point, I’ll try the rest of the menu. Yeah…..yeah this stuff lived up to and exceeded expectations.
Love at first bite.
We sat outside in the sunshine, and as soon as I took a bite, it was game over. It didn’t need sauce, it was damn near as perfect as anything could be and I was too happy to think about anything else. Meanwhile, Buster was watching me.
We hadn’t met but he was hanging in the corner of the Parking lot. To anyone else, he just looked like a dude chilling but Chefs know each other and it was clear that he was paying attention to everything going on. The place runs like a well-oiled machine, yet if anything had popped off, he was right there to fix things.
Chefs know our own kind.
We have a different vibe, we’re slightly mad yet easily excited and he could tell as I approached that I wasn’t some rando. I introduced myself to Buster and told him I was a Chef from Virginia who had been desperately missing real Southern BBQ and, being from the South himself, he understood. We ended up talking shop for a few minutes and I could have spent the entire afternoon hanging out and picking his brain. There was no air of pretentiousness with him, he doesn’t give a fuck about Instagram. He’s making the same food that his Grandmother taught him to make and he knows that the smell alone is enough to bring in the people.
I have only two complaints.
First, I wasn’t that hungry so I only tried to the Pork Butt. Now that I know, this place will be a destination worth driving back to. My only other complaint is that my Brother couldn’t be here (he’s dead in case you didn’t know) to hang out because he and Buster would have hit it off. Aside from that, I can’t wait to go back and eat my way through the entire menu.
By all means, if you are anywhere near this place and have never had real Southern BBQ, you owe it to yourself to try this place.
Buster’s Original Southern BBQ
1207 Foothill Blvd, Calistoga, CA 94515
http://www.busterssouthernbbq.com/