If you’re a barbecue lover in Toronto, you might’ve already caught wind of a new business that’s slowly but surely making a name for itself as a Texas-style BBQ haven.
Josh Abramson is the founder of The Pampered Pig, a pop-up BBQ operation that’s gaining attention for serving up some of the most authentic smoked meats you’ll find outside the Lone Star State itself.
Although he previously worked for a mortgage lender, Abramson says he’s always had a passion for barbecue and frequently took trips out to Nashville. It wasn’t until 2019 when he purchased a pellet smoker and began barbecuing in his backyard that his passion really took off.
“Not being too happy in the corporate world, it just ignited that drive and passion that I had really felt since I was playing hockey growing up,” Abramson told blogTO. “It felt so natural that I knew this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
Over the next few years, he worked at the now-shuttered Adamson Barbecue and Cherry Street Bar-B-Que, where he shadowed the pit shift. “You’re showing up at 2 or 3 in the morning, having to cook everything for the day. Obviously, at that time, no one else is awake. So if you have any questions, you just have to figure it out on the fly,” Abramson recalled.
Throughout his journey, Abramson also worked at Troubadour Festival, Texas Monthly BBQ Fest, and with some of the top 50 Texas BBQ Joints.
He took the next step in his career when joined the team at Porchetta & Co. while getting his smoker built and preparing to host his own pop-ups. Abramson reached out to Black Lab Brewing, located at 818 Eastern Ave., and began hosting regular BBQ pop-ups last May.
The menu, which rotates constantly, draws inspiration from the traditional methods of Texas barbecue. Items include the meticulously smoked brisket, saucy side ribs, and pulled pork, alongside sides like pit beans, mac and cheese, coleslaw, and dill potato salad.
Unlike other styles of barbecue where meat is cooked over an open flame or charcoal, Texas barbecue uses heat from wood-burning pits to cook brisket and beef ribs.
“Texas barbecue traditionally, if you go back to the old-school spot, was just salt and pepper, and you let the meat and the smoke do the talking,” Abramson explained. “With an offset smoker, you’re burning down your coals on the smoker itself. You really need to know how to manage a fire and how to read it. It’s very finicky, and it’s the most underrated skill in barbecue.”
Abramson’s brisket rub is simple but effective, consisting of salt, pepper, and a few other secret ingredients. The brisket, which can take anywhere between 10 and 14 hours to cook, is dry-brined for 14 to 15 hours before the cooking process begins at around 1:30 a.m., sometimes barbecuing until 3 or 4 in the afternoon.
Ribs, on the other hand, are seasoned shortly before they go onto the smoker and take anywhere from five and a half to seven hours to cook. Abramson’s barbecue sauce, which took a lot of trial and error to perfect, also reflects the traditional flavours found in standard Texas barbecue sauce, albeit a bit more vinegary.
With his menu, Abramson says he’s always trying to push the envelope with items that aren’t found in Toronto, like his pastrami reuben tacos with sauerkraut, which were on his pop-up Super Bowl menu.
While his pop-ups have been a huge success, Abramson says he’s not rushing to open a full-scale restaurant, although he’s still working on opening one up in the future.
“It’s something I care deeply about, and with honouring the history of barbecue, I really want to do it right and not rush it,” he said. Abramson envisions his future restaurant being a tribute to classic old-school Texas BBQ joints, with a simple, no-frills approach.
“In Texas, you’re getting your food on, essentially a cafeteria tray. If you go down to old-school spots in Texas, they don’t even give you a tray. They just fold up all the meat into butcher paper, tie it up in the middle, and hand you the butcher paper. You unwrap it and there’s all your food. So we really want to honour that.”
The response to his pop-ups, Abramson says, has been nothing short of overwhelmingly positive.
“Some people look at me like I’m crazy. I basically work for 24 hours straight with cooking everything and doing the service,” he explained.
“It’s very rewarding especially when people that have been down to Texas come back and say, although they were skeptical, that this is as good as anything they’ve eaten down there. We had people coming almost every single week for the entire summer, and that’s a great feeling.”
The Pampered Pig’s next pop-up will take place on March 8 and 9 at Black Lab Brewing, with plans to return to weekly pop-ups starting in April.
“There are still so many people that assume because it’s barbecue in Toronto that it’s not going to be authentic Texas barbecue, which is very much not the case with us,” Abramson said.
“We do it with traditional methods, keeping as Texas as we possibly can, while also trying to stand out with our own flavours.”
