Chicago’s Best Chicago-Style BBQ: Lexington Betty Smoke House

Everyone knows about deep dish. Everyone talks about Italian beefs. The battle for whether the Chicago-style hot dog is a sandwich or not will rage on to the end of time. Where do you think history will put Chicago-style barbecue and what will it say about it? It's only going to say it if we get the word out. It's still kind of unknown that we have one at all or people dispute it to some extent. It is a real regional style that grew out of conditions here. Same as happened in Memphis, as happened in the hill country of Texas, in North Carolina, whatever it is. So I think it has authenticity. Hopefully it'll be recognized for that. Right. It's the redheaded stepchild, but it's the one that's good looking enough to be a dog. Welcome to Chicago's Best. Thanks for having me. So usually when you find anybody who specializes in barbecue or there's a pit master or loves themselves a smoker, they typically don't have a cooking background that involves the four seasons and spiaggia. Yeah. But you do. How did you go from five-star eateries that, as far as I know, don't serve any real barbecue food to having a super successful barbecue food truck at now three physical locations? I just really wanted to represent the culture. I feel like this country was raised off of soul food. What does soul food mean to you? Soul food to me means my grandmother, Betty King. She's from Mississippi. Whenever she came by, she was in town, we knew we were eating good for that week. If you come to our house to eat or any of my family's house, this is how we eat. Smoked meats are soul food size. They're all my recipes with the exception of my mom's sweet potato pie and my aunt Connie's potato salad, which is just phenomenal. Today we're going to do the brisket, the mac and cheese. What's the preparation like on both of those? So the brisket, we use our TT seasoning to rub it down as well as a barbecue seasoning and we smoke it one hour per pound. The macaroni, we make a nice cheese sauce. It consists of five cheeses. Everything here is made from scratch. It's made with love, made with passion. I just want people to feel like I'm cooking for them personally when they sit down and have a plate of our food. Like man, she really did a wonderful job on this. All right, well let's show everybody all the effort that goes into making it now. Do I see a smoker behind you, Dominique? You definitely see a smoker behind me. I'm gonna pull our beef brisket out so we can get some nice slices out of it. Look at that. All right, she looks ready to cut. Let's get this bad boy sliced. I always flip it over, trim a little of the fat off. Now a lot of people, they'll say, hey, you make sure you give me some of that fat. But some people, I'm just introducing to brisket. So there's a nice balance I like to have. This brisket comes with a fake mac and cheese, right? Oh yeah, let me grab that out of the oven for you. Perfection. Oh, and that's a nice generous helping of mac and cheese too. Oh, and there's more. Is it time that I can go sit by my plate? Pull that plate out. Yes! Okay, can we eat now? Yes, let's eat. I shouldn't have been dying to dig in. I'm gonna put some sauce on my brisket and have a taste. I already sauced mine in advance. Sorry, I got a little ahead of myself. Oh, that is okay. Dominique, that sauce, it's such a compliment to the saltiness of this brisket, which is just cooked to perfection. This particular one was about 11 and a half pounds, so it cooked for 11 and a half hours. And the marbling on this meat, it's as pretty as a brisket. The marbleization brings so much flavor. The fat basting that brisket as it smokes, this is where it's at. This mac and cheese is where it's at, Dominique. I gotta tell you, you know how to cook. Thank you. Like, this is some legit Chicago-style barbecue. Oh! This is a masterpiece. The flavor profile and the technique is unbeatable. You want some phenomenal barbecue, all dishes homemade, with love, passion. You come to Lexington Betty's Smokehouse, and we'll take great care of you. Well, cheers to the love, because I can taste it. I'm cheersing you with my brand new Lexington Betty's water bottle. Oh, that's a nice water bottle you got there. I know a girl. She got it for me.