By Keenan Steiner
Westchester is not known for its bbq, and that may just be the reason why these barbecue providers are here to fill in a gap. Up and down county, in stationary locations and as catering trucks, bbq is on the move in Westchester, and we’re here to show you where to buy the smokiest cuts you can chew. Remember to take your time reading…brisket itself takes upwards of 12 hours to cook.
From the Crafty Cue catering truck to Bark and Brine at the The John Jay Homestead Farmer Market in Katonah to Br’ers in Bedford Hills, you can always get your bbq on…but for catering it is definitely best to call well in advance. So the demand is there, time to get out and start enjoying with everyone.
Here they are.
Crafty Cue
Food Truck and Caterer
www.craftycuebbq.com
Born in Mt. Kisco, Tim Bucolo, was working in construction in the early 2010s, and not enjoying it, but he always wanted to be an entrepreneur.
He looked to barbecue, which he was introduced to as a kid living in North Carolina. Also in the early 2010s, he and his brother started entering barbecue competitions, but he never dreamed it’s something that would work as a business in Westchester.
However, as he and his brother were entering competitions, up and down the East Coast, and doing better, he started posting about it on their Facebook page, and they were doing better in the competitions. People back from Mt Kisco started asking him to make food for them, with pleas like, “Can you make me a tray of ribs?”
He started doing trays of ‘cue out of his house in Mt. Kisco. That’s what got him thinking: “There’s obviously a desire for it in this area.”
So, ever the entrepreneur, he soon started. He bought a smoker, trailer, and a truck to pull it, some tents and tables. It was January 2014. He did that for more than two years.
He bought the truck in October 2016, it sat all winter and started building it out from scratch in 2017 – everything from the floors to the gas lines.
“I found my niche in catering because I can focus more on the product,” The higher the volume, if it were a restaurant, means more of a risk you have that the meat is not at the standard that I would like.
“What separates what I do I had a chance to travel around a little bit – Texas, Kansas City, North Carolina. I’ve gotten to go and see what makes those regions special.”
On to his barbecue. He adopted his brisket method from Texas, of course, using hardwood oaks and simple rubs (salt pepper garlic) and cooking for 12 to 14 hours.
”I’m not reinventing the wheel but I’m always trying to respect the region that it came from,” he said.
“I cook things that I like to eat,” he said, out of his commissary kitchen in Somers.
Brisket, trendy these days, is his most popular item for parties, though pulled pork sandwiches with pickle and coleslaw (made with his own dressing – mayo, vinegar, hot sauce, mustard, onion and more.) is popular too.
The sauce on the brisket is more of a Kansas City style sauce also used on the BBQ Chicken. It’s a tomato-based sauce made with brown sugar, spices, vinegar, and worcestershire sauce.
Another highlight is also offers crafty reuben – house-made pastrami (own rub and he smokes it for 13,14 hours and it gets cooled and sliced, and it gets brought back to temperature). It’s a 10-day brine on the pastrami. The sandwich has sauerkraut, muenster cheese, chipotle Russian dressing to offer a little kick.
One popular sandwich is a brisket grilled cheese – white American cheese and a cherry pepper aioli on it. When you mix the cherry peppers with the mayonnaise, it becomes a whole new sauce and doesn’t taste like mayo anymore.
He offers St. Louis-cut spare ribs, smoked with apple and cherry wood and sauced Kansas City style in a sweet and tangy, brown-sugar based tomato-sauce.
He also does pork belly, smoked turkey, smoked fried chicken wings and his sides are mac n cheese, baked beans, corned bread, potato salad, and coleslaw.
His truck has become so popular, and lots of people have events on Saturdays and Sundays, that he recommends booking at least a month out to be safe.
He’s most proud of serving many of the same clients year after year. “I do parties for people year after year after year and they’re not going with someone else. To me that means I’ve delivered a product that everybody enjoys.”
His BBQ Chicken has won an award too, he said – the Rhode Island State Championships around 2015.
To book, you can email or fill out a catering form on the website, all found on the website. He suggests choosing three mains and three sides for your event. He also has a separate appetizer menu which you can add to your event, which includes pigs in a blanket, reuben egg rolls, and North Carolina pulled pork sliders.
Bark and Brine
Katonah Farmers Market
Saturday from May to October,
9 am to 2 pm.
Lot 2 202 Katonah Avenue
www.barkandbrine.com
The pandemic pushed documentary film producer Daniel Raiffe and his wife from New York City to Westchester, and it drove him to barbecue, which much like documentary film is backed by process and story. He always had a passion for cooking.
His passions dovetail. Much like the documentary filmmaking, barbecue is “a long, low. and slow process… it’s a labor of love,” he said.
Operating out of the The John Jay Homestead Farmer Market (for this season being held in downtown Katonah) on Saturdays and actively looking for a brick and mortar location, Raiffe came to bbq more humbly.
During the pandemic, he got his first smoker out of a box from Lowe’s – not exactly professional grade, so if you can make good barbecue on those, you’re on the right path. Starting with watching youtube videos, he made his first brisket, and started cooking for friends and family.
Once he got a bigger smoker, the problem was, the family loved it but they couldn’t eat BBQ all the time – so what to do with the extra bbq?
“Similar to the film industry you go down a route of deciding what the process would be and make a business plan.” He knew where he wanted to be and figured out the steps to get there. Initially, the plan was just how to get at the Katonah Farmer’s Market. Then, the goal became how to become a licensed caterer in Westchester.
The inspiration is a lot from Texas style, he said. Specifically, Raiffe was inspired by LeRoy and Lewis based in Austin, Texas, among a group of the first barbecue restaurants to ever receive a Michelin Star, which took place in 2024.
Where does his name come from? Bark refers to the crust on brisket and brine because he started to make pickles as well and when you make a pastrami you brine a pastrami.
The #1 draw at Bark and Brine is a Texas-style, salt-and-pepper brisket, smoked low and slow for 12 to 14 hours, depending on the weather. It’s a classic preparation. He does not add a heavy rub because he doesn’t want it to compete with the other flavors of the smoked brisket. The goal is in the end, people notice the balance between the beef, the smoke, and the seasoning and you get this unctuous flavor, he said.
As for the sauce to go with it, he makes a sweet honey sauce and cuts it with vinegar. It’s more of a sweeter tomato based sauce made with honey and molasses and cut with apple cider vinegar so there’s “some tang on the backside,” he said.
He also does smoked chicken, pulled pork and spare ribs, and started to do a beef and cheddar house-made sausage that people are really responding to.
Overall, “People have really responded and love the food and have been great about it and keep coming back week after week, wanting more,” he said.
Go on down to Katonah on Saturdays to try his ‘cue or order his catering right from his website. Worth noting…the brisket and pulled pork often sell out by noon, Raiffe said, so get there early.
Br’ers Bbq
52 Church Street, Bedford Hills
www.brersbbq.com
914.729.5674
Sunday to Thursday, 8 am to 8 pm
Friday and Saturday, 8 am to 9 pm
Young chef Alexa FitzGerald, 24, was tapped as the first chef at this bbq joint in Bedford Hills opened just a little over two years ago, owned by the same team behind Purdy’s Farmer & The Fish in North Salem, among other restaurants.
FitzGerald had interned with Purdys while at the Culinary Institute of America and the team saw so much potential in her that she was tapped to open the new bbq concept. FitzGerald, from Connecticut, was raised by parents who loved to cook and has a passion for meat fabrication and butchery. receiving training while working at Mill House Brewing Company in Poughkeepsie.
The menu draws from Kansas City, Texas, and Carolina routes, and FitzGerald’s own twists, even adding Latin influences from her time growing up around a large Latino (especially Dominican) population in Danbury, Connecticut.
The three most popular items are the fried chicken, brisket, and baby back ribs.
The brisket is cooked for anywhere from 15 to 20 hours on hickory and mesquite pellets, giving it a bolder, leveled out smoky flavor. It’s sprayed with their top-secret meat sauce every couple hours, which FitzGerald says helps develop a better bark and adds moisture. The brisket’s rub, in addition to salt and pepper, gets ancho chile, which is where the Latin influence comes in.
A note – Dried chiles go in a lot of the rubs, not only because of her upbringing but because Bedford Hills has a strong Latino community too “so I wanted to be a little more familiar to everyone,” she said.
The classic sauce on that brisket is tomato-based but if someone wants a little something different they also have their swine sauce, a vinegar- and mustard-based Carolina style bbq sauce recommended to go with the pulled pork (to cut the fattiness of the pork).
The fried chicken stands out from other bbq places because it’s boneless. The chicken thighs and breasts are buttermilk marinated and dredged in seasoned flour.
The baby back ribs gets their own special rub, too, a rub that evokes “apple pie spice” (but isn’t), and are cooked for five hours, low and slow, constantly being sprayed.
Sides-wise, the burnt-end baked beans and the cabbage slaw are standouts, she said. The sweet baked beans are made with both brisket and pulled pork burnt ends, with some onions and peppers.. The slaw is unique because it’s sour cream and high-fat yogurt sauce, making it a creamy, tangy, slaw rather than a heavier mayonnaise-based slaw.
But Br’ers does breakfast, too (from 8 to 11 am). They do a brisket egg and cheese, a bacon egg and cheese, and pulled pork breakfast burrito.
Because Purdy’s Farmer & The Fish is known for its farm, the summer months mean the team gets to bring back farm-fresh ingredients. Surely coming back is the tri-tip steak sandwich which is made with a hot honey chimichurri (with herbs such as parsley that come from the farm) and pickled cherry peppers.
For catering, make sure you book 48 hours in advance, though the team is very flexible and will try to accommodate, she said.
The restaurant, primarily takeout, has three high top tables to sit at as well.
Orders come online, over the phone, in person and they also deliver with Uber Eats and Doordash.
