Adam Erace has words of praise for the service and the food at Fette Sau, the Brooklyn barbecue joint that Stephen Starr and Joe Carroll have brought to Fishtown.

Carroll developed this rub early on in his barbecue education, back when he’d “spend the night sitting up with a brisket, pork shoulder and a couple racks of ribs” on the Bullet smoker he stored in his parents’ Jersey backyard. “The rub’s sweet and bitter notes, those two flavors create a complex interesting flavor, like putting milk and sugar into black coffee,” he says.

Add in the pork belly, my favorite of Fette Sau’s meats, and you’ve got breakfast. Thick slices of it glistened against the brown butcher paper, the alternating bands of flesh and fat. Chef Jim Davidson, a Starr veteran executing Carroll’s vision, knows what he’s doing. The smoke came through immediately, then the rub. I tried a little naked, a little with each sauce; a splash of the vinegar sharpened the flavors like a Nikon lens.

Borough Bred [City Paper]
Fette Sau [Official Site]

Photo by Neal Santos