Nearly seven years ago, I claimed that the Texas-style barbecue in Portland, Oregon, was better than that in any other city outside Texas. I went back in 2024 to double-check and found three joints to include in my “United States of Texas Barbecue” list. Portland’s smoked-meat game was still on solid footing. Barbecue guides from Portland Monthly, Eater Portland, and The Oregonian, all published within the past year, mentioned the praise I offered way back in 2019. That was as flattering as it was motivating. I figured it was time to get back to Rose City and see about the new spots these local publications were highlighting.
Darren Bottinelli moved Botto’s BBQ out of a food truck and into an A-frame building in late 2020. I missed it during my last trip but felt right at home when I saw Austin’s Shinyribs on the Aladdin Theater marquee across the street. Fans heading to the show on July 17 should consider adding Botto’s to their dinner plans. The plump Hatch-and-cheddar sausage, made in-house, was ready to burst when I took a bite. An audible snap through the mahogany casing was followed by a rush of fat and spices. A Texas hot link and a Polish sausage were also available. The spare ribs were a tad undercooked, so let’s get to the beef.
Even the lean brisket glistened with fat as I sat at a picnic table outside. The steel offset smokers in the shipping container next to me perfumed the air. A black pepper bark surrounded the beautifully smoked fatty slice. I held it up for a photo, hoping it would remain intact while it quivered, and it did. I savored every bite during my first meal of the day. The thick slice of smoked meatloaf was no afterthought created just to use up brisket trim. It’s well seasoned and gets a bit of crunch from a hot sear before serving. Nestled into a thick smear of mayo on a griddled bun with a slice of Swiss cheese melted on top, the sandwich was probably rich enough on its own before dipping it into the thick brisket gravy served alongside. But I’ll never know—I’m a dipper.
The barbecue is the star at Botto’s, but you should also take the smashburgers seriously. An inch of the brisket patty’s lacy edges protruded beyond the golden potato roll. Besides a slice of American cheese, it gets just burger sauce and thinly sliced white onion. It needed nothing more.
Bark City BBQ or Matt’s BBQ seemed like obvious follow-up visits, as I had listed them among the best Texas-style barbecue joints in the country after a trip two summers ago. But I wanted to focus on newer joints like Har-BQ, which Harlan Porterfield began as a pop-up in 2022. After two years cooking under other people’s roofs, he got a food truck and moved around to different breweries until finding a permanent spot at Von Ebert Brewing last year.
I arrived right as it opened its window at noon on a Friday. It saves its sliced brisket for Saturdays, so the smoked-beef option of the day was beef cheek in a romesco sauce. That pairing was a first for me, but the nutty, roasted red pepper sauce was a nice complement to the incredibly tender, fatty beef cheeks. I loved the seemingly simple chopped-brisket sandwich. The peppery beef got extra flavor from oxtail drippings, so it was like eating beef squared. Joined by dill pickle chips and raw white onion on a buttered and griddled bun, this was a sandwich that demanded my attention, even on a crowded platter.
Thai-curry smoked sausage and a sambal chicken thigh both advertised bold flavors in their menu descriptions. The sausage was closer to delivering on its promise, while the expertly smoked chicken thigh was surprisingly bland. I reached instead for another bite of what turned out to be the best dish of the day: the pork belly burnt ends were smoked, fried, glazed with gochujang, and coated in a ginger-scallion sauce with toasted sesame seeds. I bargained with some tablemates over the last bite.
Tough Luck, in Portland’s Woodlawn neighborhood, hosted an early version of Har-BQ and now partners with Lil’ Barbecue, the little sister of Michelin-starred La Barbecue, in Austin. After importing an M&M rotisserie smoker and a Mill Scale offset from Texas, pitmaster Ben Vaughan, previously the general manager at La Barbecue, started smoking in Portland last October.
I was with a group, so we ordered a ton of barbecue. Lil’ Barbecue makes it easy with trays like the Holy Matrimony, which includes all the smoked meats and sides for $75. We’ll get to that, but first let’s talk about the klobasniky, the meat-filled cousin of the fruity kolache. It was masterful and surely a Texas vocabulary lesson for most customers. Slightly sweet and very buttery dough surrounded a half link of house-smoked sausage, melted cheddar, and jalapeños. A slice of roasted jalapeño topped it off. I was transported to West, Texas, with my first bite.
The brisket was certainly reminiscent of La Barbecue’s—the lean slices’ translucent fat beneath peppery bark melted on my tongue. They were pull-apart tender, beefy, and well-seasoned. Someone got too aggressive with the salt on the fatty end, so I needed a sip of the guava-lemonade slushie from the bar to wash it down. From there, it was on to the smoked chicken thigh that stole the show. Boneless and skinless thighs have become popular in barbecue, so I was happy to see this skin-on version. The skin had crunch and smoke, while the meat beneath remained juicy. We polished it off first.
The burger from Lil’ Barbecue. Photograph by Daniel Vaughn 
A tray from Briel’s BBQ. Photograph by Daniel Vaughn
Seeing so many versions of house-made sausage around Portland was a great sign of just how influential Texas barbecue has been here. Of course, Lil’ Barbecue, where the lineage stretches back to Louie Mueller Barbecue, one of Texas’s great smoked-sausage houses, does it well. The spare ribs were also excellent, and I actually prefer Lil’ Barbecue’s savory rub to La Barbecue’s sweet-and-saucy ribs. A nod to La Barbecue’s owner Ali Clem on the menu isn’t barbecue but rather a double cheeseburger. Just yellow mustard and pickles are added to the buttered bun with two juicy, beautifully seared patties and two slices of melted American cheese. This is my kind of burger, and for $12 you also get a side with it. I suggest the tater tots, which are more like fried cubes of seasoned mashed potatoes.
Portland added another Southern barbecue import when Atlanta’s Bryan Furman came to town in January. He partnered with Portland chef Gregory Gourdet to run a Bryan Furman BBQ pop-up out of the bar beneath Kann, Gourdet’s Haitian restaurant. The temporary residency was supposed to end in April but became so popular that it was extended into summer. The space is strictly 21 and over, so my teen daughter stayed upstairs while I grabbed an order to-go. She didn’t have to wait long, thanks to the swift service and the fact that the bar was empty at 2:30 p.m.
The joint almost dares you to order its brisket à la carte, priced at $60 per pound, which is the most expensive brisket I’ve ever seen on a barbecue-joint menu. With just three meats available—brisket, spare ribs, and smoked chicken—I got to try the whole menu for $80 by ordering two plates and the banana pudding. In a town with so many options for great brisket, this one was too dry and overcooked to compete. The chicken quarter was better, but I preferred the simply seasoned spare ribs, which come with several additional rib tips great for dipping into the Georgia red or the peach mustard sauces. I haven’t yet mentioned many of the sides I tried at my various stops, but Furman’s sweet baked beans were addictive and his baked mac and cheese was simply perfect.
A selection of menu items from Bryan Furman BBQ, including the $60 brisket.Photograph by Daniel Vaughn
Eating at four barbecue joints in one day was a lot, but I was now confident that Portland’s barbecue is only getting better. Though I wondered how good it was compared to the best barbecue meal I had last time I was in the area at Grasslands Barbecue. Yes, I know it’s not in Portland. Much like Snow’s BBQ, in Lexington, is to Austin, one must drive an hour east of the city along the Columbia River to get to the trailer in Hood River. My daughter and I had Mike Thelin as our guide for the day. He cofounded two food festivals, Feast Portland and Hot Luck, in Austin. Ben Jacobsen took the fourth seat and brought along travel packs of his eponymous salt in case we found anything to be underseasoned.
About twenty people stood in line when the doors opened at 11:30 a.m. The staff moved quickly, and we had a massive tray of barbecue at 12:05 p.m. It was Saturday, so brisket was available. We got to sample more protein than the joint normally offers, because there was beef tongue and baby back ribs prepared for an earlier photo shoot. Lucky us. The baby backs had a mezcal-jalapeño glaze, fresh lime juice, and a spicy finishing rub that reminded me of Memphis dry-rub ribs. They were smoked perfectly tender with a great bark and were some of my favorite baby backs I’ve ever eaten.
Glorious nuggets of brisket burnt ends led to fatty slices with a crunchy bark and just enough strength left in the rendered fat to allow me to hold a slice up for a photo. It was the best brisket I’ve had in Oregon, and it would be among the best I’ve had in Texas as well. The same goes for the sausages. The Hatch cheddar and the pork belly boudin dazzled, but it was the Texas hot link that stuck with me. The snap, smoke, juice, garlic, black pepper, and mustard seeds all came together for an ideal sausage.
The buttery, tender beef tongue was an unexpected treat made even better by flour tortillas and chimichurri on the side. Pork belly burnt ends were softened in the smoker, crisped in the deep fryer, and then coated in a ginger-soy glaze with sesame seeds. Inventive sides, such as charred slaw with black-chile vinaigrette and watermelon salad with toasted peanuts, were welcome departures from the norm. The quality across the board at Grasslands Barbecue—from the meats to the pickles to the Fresno-chile hot sauce—is what everyone else in Oregon should be aiming for.
On our way back to Portland, we took a detour south around Mount Hood and up to Timberline Lodge, where the exterior hotel shots in The Shining was filmed. It was a lazy drive with the windows down and barbecue in our rear view—or so we thought. A chef friend of Thelin’s saw his smoky adventures on social media and texted him that his favorite Portland barbecue was being served at Briel’s BBQ. A quick search showed its next pop-up would be around the time we returned to town, at Allgood Brewing Company, not far from Thelin’s house. I felt like the universe was telling me I had no choice but to add one more stop.
We arrived at 4:15 p.m., fifteen minutes after it opened, to a line of about fifteen people. At 4:30 p.m., the first customer was served. Pitmaster Trebriel Larry was running back and forth between the pit and the cutting block. I’m not sure if it was an off day, but two hours later we finally got a tray of barbecue. We chatted with our neighbors, and the brewery was pouring some good beers, so we harvested every bit of patience we had to endure the least efficient barbecue line I’ve ever witnessed.
A few items made the wait pay off. Big spare ribs with a beautiful bark were brushed with maple syrup and finished with a Memphis dry rub. They were tender and juicy. The snap on the spicy Italian sausage was superb, as was the seasoning. The beef rib sold out just before we got to the front, but there was plenty of brisket left. Though tender, it was a bit overcooked and needed a better trim on the surface fat. The pork belly burnt ends needed more time to soften their fat. Charred corn and peaches made for a unique take on succotash, but serving it cold was unexpected. I enjoyed the pork hash, an homage to South Carolina. Between that, the Memphis dry rub, the Italian sausage, and the Texas-style brisket in a Texas-built HDM Smoker, Briel brought together a bunch of barbecue traditions under one tent.
In just two days of exploration, Portland once again cemented itself as a bona fide barbecue destination. The new blood is cooking fearlessly; the old guard continues to push toward a higher level of excellence; and the Texan transplant is doing its forbearer proud. Few other places (Raleigh-Durham comes to mind) come close to competing with Portland when it comes to Texas-style barbecue.
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