Texas style
The barbecue at Melt in Paris will put you in a Lone Star State of mind.
I thought I had seen it all when a legitimate Texas-style barbecue joint, The Beast, opened in Paris back in 2014.
Twenty years ago, the idea of American comfort food in the City of Light was mostly unheard of. The French, after all, are pretty good at making their own comfort food — like boeuf bourguignon, cassoulet and coq au vin. But these days, Americanstyle burger, burrito and taco joints are flourishing all over Paris.
So, too, is legitimate Texas-style barbecue, if the recent opening of Melt restaurant is any indication.
Melt is the creation of two Parisborn childhood friends, Antoine Martinez and Jean Ganizate. Both are Swisstrained restaurateurs, having graduated from the hospitality management program at the Glion Institute of Higher Education.
Such highly trained European restaurateurs usually aspire to open a haute-cuisine, Michelinstarred restaurant. Instead, they opened a Texas barbecue joint. The story of how this came about is another example of how the culture of Texas barbecue continues to capture the imaginations of chefs and restaurateurs all over the world.
Martinez grew up in the Vincennes neighborhood of Paris. He was on track to pursue a traditional career in architecture but fell in love with the restaurant business while working his way through school. After graduating from the French equivalent of high school, he worked at the Michelin-starred restaurant yam’Tcha. From there he went on to Glion and reconnected with childhood friend Ganizate.
After graduating in 2013, they both moved to New York City. Martinez worked for highly regarded chef Paul Liebrandt; Ganizate took a management position for Maison Kayser, an outpost of the Parisbased chain of high-end bakeries.
Their “eureka moment” came in the summer of 2013, when the two friends walked past the Texas-style barbecue joint Mighty Quinn’s, located in the East Village.
“We’d never seen anything like this,” Martinez says. “You could smell the smoke, and people were lining up inside to watch them slice the meat at the counter.”
Coincidentally, the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, where they met Scott Roberts of The Salt Lick barbecue restaurant near Austin, was taking place at the same time. Roberts invited them to visit, which they did in September of 2013. They also made a trip up to Dallas to check out the barbecue scene there.
After arriving, they headed straight for Pecan Lodge, Dallas’ most celebrated barbecue joint, but it had closed for the evening. They walked around back and found the night-shift pitmaster, Jeff Howard, who gave them a tour of the pit room.
Inspired, they eventually moved back to Paris to plan for their own Texas-style barbecue joint. But first, they needed someone who could cook barbecue. They had kept in touch with Howard and offered him the job. He moved to Paris in 2016 to start work on the project.
The next challenge was to acquire a legitimate smoker. They ordered an Ole Hickory from the U.S., but that got turned away at the French border because it did not pass safety inspections. They found a restaurant equipment dealer in Germany that already had a Southern Pride smoker on hand, which they acquired, and now use as their only smoker. Melt — as in “melt in your mouth” — opened in November.
Howard insists on importing only U.S.D.A. prime-grade briskets from the U.S. On a recent visit to Melt, I ordered a full platter of meats — brisket, pork ribs, sausage and chicken. All were expertly prepared — some of the best and most authentic Texas-style barbecue in Europe.
As I sat in the small dining room, I watched as Parisians wandered in and warily looked around. The personable Ganizate waved them over to the order counter and patiently explained how to order Texas barbecue. Howard and Martinez manned the cutting table, mesmerizing the people standing in line watching them carve brisket and ribs.
The dining room was full at the height of lunch hour. The customers were obviously enamored of this Texas culinary transplant, all of them cutting away small portions of brisket with their knives and forks. More than a few furtive glances shot my way as I stripped apart the brisket and gnawed away at the pork ribs with my fingers.
Pro tip: If you want to find the Texas expatriates in a barbecue joint in Paris, they’re the ones not using utensils.