(Barbecue bliss: A full order of dry ribs with beans and slaw from the Rendezvous, and a jumbo chopped pork sandwich from Payne’s.)
Anyone who knows me well knows of my love of Memphis barbecue. From an early age, my father, a food-loving Brooklynite, and my mother’s vast, pork-and-shrimp-eating Southern Jewish family introduced me to the joys of the cuisine during the long summers I spent in Memphis. I grew up eating dry ribs and smoked sausage plates at the Rendezvous, chopped-pork sandwiches at Payne’s, and the occasional plate of BBQ spaghetti (yes, you read that right) at Interstate. My travels have introduced me to other excellent barbecue traditions, like the beef brisket and thick, vinegary sauce of Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City or the rib tips and hot links cooked in an “aquarium-style” smoker at Honey 1 in Chicago, but I’ll always place Memphis above all others.
As a Memphis barbecue lover whose immediate family lives in the New York City area, you’d think I would be delighted that Pat and Gina Neely, the telegenic stars of the Food Network’s Down Home with the Neelys and owners of two Neely’s BBQ restaurants in Memphis, are opening a barbecue restaurant, Neely’s Barbecue Parlor, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Not so much.
Why? Well, first off, Neely’s, despite its Food Network stardom, isn’t exactly the best barbecue in Memphis. I’ve had Neely’s, and neither its ribs nor its sandwich can hold a candle to the best that Memphis has to offer. Second, New York just isn’t a barbecue town, especially not the hyper-bourgeois part of Manhattan where the Neelys plan to open. Generations of New Yorkers, like most Northerners, have been taught to expect and demand fall-off-the-bone, “meat jello” ribs and dry, flavorless pork sandwiches, thanks to the popularity of eateries like Blue Smoke and Dinosaur.
So what, you might say, another crappy BBQ joint in a city that’s already teeming with them. Nope, this one is different. There’s no question that the Twitter/Yelp hype machine, blogosphere, and foodie press will be all over Neely’s the way they are when Tyler Florence, Bobby Flay, or Danny Meyer open a new establishment. For much of America, thus, Neely’s will come to represent Memphis barbecue, and this is bad. The more people are exposed to what promises to be a so-so interpretation of the style, the more they will associate it with the style as a whole. For an example, just look at Chicago-style pizza, which suffers from a poor nationwide reputation due to the crappy product of its main proponent, the national Pizzeria Uno chain. Trust me, Chicago pizza is much better than all that. A visit to Lou Malnati’s or Giordano’s should have you convinced.
There’s also the problem that the appearance of another lesser-known regional specialty in New York is helping contribute to New Yorkers’ hubris and provinciality. The more New York manages to poach various regional specialties from their homes (Mile End’s Montreal-style bagel and Whitman’s Jucy Lucy are two examples I can think of off the top of my head), the more it reinforces many New Yorkers’ strident insistence that their city is the center of the universe and that no other place could ever have anything to offer. “Why do I ever need to travel?” I once read in a post on Fark, “I live in New York. The world visits us.” C’mon, New Yorkers, dial down the ego just a bit. It’s not all uncharted wilderness beyond the five boroughs.
