Soul & Smoke’s New Flagship Brings Chicago Barbecue to a New Level

You’ll still find all Soul & Smoke classics

The best seat in the house is at the chef’s counter, where guests can see two new custom smokers turning out all-day classics, from brisket and pulled pork, along with menu additions like a $45 beef rib and pastrami beef cheeks. Carter and Bublick consider their barbecue “Chicago-style:” “It reflects the city’s melting pot culture by drawing from multiple regional traditions and adding a unique spin with heavier seasoning, diverse rub ingredients, and two types of firewood,” says Bublick.

You’ll find smoked Duroc rib tips, a Chicago barbecue staple with roots on the South Side, where Black pitmasters in the 1940s and ’50s started selling the inexpensive tough tops of spare ribs instead of discarding them. “Rib tips are Chicago heritage at this point,” says Bublick. Carter smokes meats over hickory and cherry (he says he’s playing with mesquite) and makes four house sauces: a tangy Carolina vinegar-based sauce, a gold sauce with mustard, classic jerk, and original BBQ that Bublick describes as Kansas City-style meets “what Chicagoans grew up with, more like Sweet Baby Ray’s but not as sweet.” Carter is also devoted to utilizing high-quality and sustainably-focused purveyors like Niman Ranch and Nichols Farm. “I’m trying to create the best barbecue experience you can think of, using quality meats and farmers to help tell their story,” he says.

The soul food side of the menu includes a smoked chicken gumbo made with Carolina Gold rice, mac and cheese, and shrimp and grits. One exciting equipment addition is a deep-fryer. “It’s kind of a big deal,” says Bublick. “Our front of house team was like, ‘are there going to be fries?’ That’s all they wanted to know. So we made it happen.” Desserts include cakes from local Brown Sugar Bakery and a sky-high sweet potato pie Carter worked on with consulting pastry chef Casey Doody (of Boka and Gibson’s Restaurant Group). Coming soon are a Swiss roll, banana pudding, and peach cobbler, available by the slice or as a whole pie.

But Don’t Miss the Evening Dinner Menu

Every night at 4 p.m, small lamps hit the tables and a menu of upscale dishes become available along with the full barbecue menu. Bublick and Carter originally wanted to serve higher-end items (many of which they previously offered on the catering menu) in a separate area, but ultimately decided to keep the concepts together. “I wanted to elevate the idea of what barbecue can be,” says Carter. “I didn’t want to just stick to primal cuts. Barbecue isn’t just ribs; it can also be charcoal-grilled halibut collar or ahi tuna poke cones with smoked dashi. It’s playing around with flavor and techniques.”

You’ll find those two dishes, along with potato salad-deviled eggs, oysters with smoked kaluga caviar, and a playful Moto-inspired cigar (a dish Carter originally created at the fine-dining restaurant), made with smoked oxtail wrapped in collard greens and served smashed into sesame ash. There’s also New Orleans-style Bang Bang BBQ shrimp and housemade spaghetti with Cajun heirloom tomato sauce—a dish Bublick said Carter, who once worked at Olive Garden, was emphatic about including. “For him, a traditional Chicago soul food dinner is not complete without a spaghetti dish,” she explains. Carter is also working on a special steak, charcoal-grilled beets, and lamb chops, and is excited about his robata grill. “We want to play with the high-low. We want it to feel fancy, but also comfortable,” says Bublick. “You can come and get a rib tip combo and spend $14, but if you want to go out and celebrate, we can do that too.”

There’s more than bourbon and beer

It was also important to Bublick, a sommelier, that the restaurant offer unexpected beverage options. “I think only in this country is barbecue something that’s become all bourbon and beer. Everywhere else in the world, you have grilled meats with red wine,” says Bublick, who put together a glass and bottle list that features wines from BIPOC or woman-owned producers. Cocktails range from classics to retro favorites like a dark and stormy, amaretto stone sour, and hurricane, “aka ’90s throwbacks no one drinks anymore, but we all loved,” laughs Bublick, along with cocktails on draft as well as spirit-free frozen drinks. And yes, you’ll still find bourbon in cocktails like the smoked peach Arnold Palmer and a blackberry sour, and beer from local breweries, including Beer for the Soul, a collaborative brew created by Sketchbook Brewing Co., based in neighboring Skokie, Ill.

Giving back to the community

As Soul & Smoke grows, the couple is more dedicated than ever to giving back to the community. As part of their nonprofit Soul & Smoke Foundation, which works to promote food security, they offer a community fridge outside the restaurant that’s constantly replenished with day-old bread and leftover food for anyone to take who lives in Evanston’s Fifth Ward and beyond. As long-time partners with Rethink Foods, they also work with the chef-led food sustainability nonprofit to provide 750 meals a week to communities in need, and this Thanksgiving they’ll partner with neighborhood organizations to provide meals for around 125 families. “They get a copy of the Thanksgiving menu. They tell us what they want and they pick up in the same line the same food that everyone else gets,” says Bublick.

Leave time to check out all the art

The large space, intended to evoke a backyard barbecue, allows plenty of room for plants and greenery, but also local art from artists that inspired  the couple. Custom murals and artwork appear throughout the space—from JC Rivera’s Bear Champ near the entrance to a Flyboy universe mural by Hebru Brantley over one wall in the dining room. A mural by Northwestern grad Dwight White that depicts the connection between farmer and chef is featured on an original barn door from the building, when it served as a dairy farm (you’ll see a milk bottle in the mix, along with Soul & Smoke and Northwestern logos), and custom floral wallpaper by contemporary pop artist Rello is all over  the bathrooms. Along with the playlist and chef’s counter, Carter says the decor is one of his favorite parts of the restaurant. “The art is telling stories of the building and of the community. It’s our way of giving back to it,” he says.