If you love you some ’cue, you gotta get to Parma’s Barabicu

Food at Parma smokehouse is so good you won’t mind roughing it a bit

I don’t want to make it sound like it’s been some elaborate, meticulous search — there are plenty of places I haven’t visited — but I don’t feel I’d found great barbecue in Northeast Ohio.

Good barbecue? Oh yeah. You don’t have to go far to find ‘cue that will get the job done.

But a place serving up that seasoned, tender meat that’s so good you want to shake somebody until they agree to go there themselves? I hadn’t found it.

That was until I checked out Barabicu in Parma.

You want frills? Go somewhere else, pal — this joint ain’t got ’em.

You have to understand what Barabicu — which, states on its website, means “sacred fire pit” — is and what it isn’t. It IS a great smokehouse serving up — and regularly running out of — terrific takes on the barbecue staples, from pulled pork to brisket and from chicken to ribs, as well as tasty sides. It IS NOT a fullservice restaurant.

Majority owner Daniel Cassano, who opened the business almost exactly a year ago with a partner who has since departed, says it is zoned as a to-go delicatessen in what is a very old building. The menu is on a chalkboard, and you order from a counter, where you pick up your food, all of which is in to-go entertainers. However, in the next room, where there’s little more in the way of decoration than a long stack of the cherry wood destined for the smoker, there are a few generic tables where diners are welcomed to chow down before going along their merry, full way.

In its brief existence, Barabicu already has earned a reputation as a must-visit for barbecue fans. And they’re known for running out of food on the early side. (I’d actually hoped to review them earlier but when I showed up early on a Saturday afternoon months ago, they were out of a few things and it didn’t feel like it would be the best way to judge the place.)

Late on a recent Thursday morning, before we were to embark on a road trip to Cincinnati, I met my buddy Dave to fuel up at Barabicu. I arrived early and studied the board. As I waited, a gentleman behind the counter asked if it was my first time there, and after I told him yes he offered me a sample. The slice of the zesty, dense meatloaf was fantastic and really whet my appetite for what was to come.

The way to try just about everything is the Bicu Box, a $65 feast for more than one that includes ribs, brisket, meatloaf, pulled pork, jalapeno cheddar sausage, four sides and four beverages. Sadly, Dave wasn’t up for that, so I settled on the Baby Bicu $25) which is roughly half the size but doesn’t include the halfrack of ribs, which you can — and I did — add for $10. (On its own, a half-rack is $14.) It also came with two small containers of each of its two barbecue sauces, a tangy BBQ and a mustard-vinegar concoction.

A few minutes later, when I was presented with a packed plastic bag, it confirmed what I greatly suspected: I would have leftovers. (Don’t worry, I was able to stash them at the nearby house of Dave’s father, who, bless his house, didn’t devour them before my return the next day.)

I spread everything out, including my two sides, the Island Pit Beans and the Chipotle Queso Mac, and got to work.

Look, everything is good, seriously. Many of the meats get the house’s basic rub, so there is some similar seasoning among the items, but their preparations differ in some ways. For starters, they are, of course, smoked for different lengths of time; Cassano says the chicken gets only an hour or so in the smoker, while the ribs are smoked for four and a half to six hours and the brisket 12 to 15, depending on sizes. One meat or another may get an additional glaze or other preparation.

My favorite item may be the aforementioned meatloaf, but the chunky brisket is certainly something about which to write home. The pulled pork? So tender and juicy. And while ribs aren’t normally a go-to item for me, these were spectacular. They were very flavorful and tender without being fall-off-the-bone sloppy.

And I can’t go without mentioning the cupcake chicken, a thigh preparation that is so laborintensive it is usually reserved for competitions, Cassano says. If I got this right, the chicken is brined overnight, deboned, deskinned and defatted and then wrapped back up in its skin and smoked. Really worth trying if you’re there.

Oh, and don’t sleep on the sides. While the beans certainly were better than the average baked beans, it was Barabicu’s zesty take on mac-n-cheese, which makes use of spiral noodles, that stood out. (The main reason I wanted us to order the Bicu Box is to be able to sample two more sides, which could have been smoked potato salad, smoky collard greens and coleslaw. I mean, how good does smoked potato salad sound? Oh well.)

Last but not least, let’s talk about those sauces. While there is nothing wrong with the tangy sauce, the mustard-vinegar is a wow. I increasingly went to it instead of the former and, not surprisingly, Cassano says he is considering selling it. Like any really good barbecue, his doesn’t need sauce, but I would never say no to that one.

Back to that dining room — there just isn’t much to it. In fact, there’s no restroom for customers, just a sink so you can clean up after your feast. And thank heavens. So understand when you see less-than-stellar ratings for ambiance and service, they should be taken with a couple of grains of salt. The dining room is clean, and that’s all that really matters, and the service is plenty friendly. You just shouldn’t expect to be waited on after you’ve gotten your food.

Maybe some future version of Barabicu will be a full-service restaurant, but in the near future Cassano plans to spruce up that room with the tables just a bit and, hopefully, get a license to offer beer. Yes, beer with the BBQ would be solid.

Cassano calls Barabicu a “true Southern smokehouse” while also saying that he has picked his various preparations from different regions around the country, noting, for example, the ribs are kind of a St. Louis style.

It all makes for one compelling recipe. Keep on smokin’.

MARK MESZOROS — THE NEWS-HERALD The Baby Bicu at Barabicu Smokehouse in Parma includes a wide selection of smoked meats, including brisket, pulled pork and cupcake chicken.