Hometown Bar-B-Que – Billy Durney's smoke temple in Red Hook

Hometown Bar-B-Que fills a century-old former woodworker's warehouse on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, the kind of building that sat empty for decades before Billy Durney and restaurateur Christopher Miller filled it with timber from an antique barn and the smell of oak smoke. It holds a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand, the Guide's distinction for good quality, good value cooking, awarded to a room that still runs on walk-up counter service and sells out of brisket most nights. Durney, a Brooklyn native who spent two decades as a bodyguard for actors and musicians before he ever lit a pit, opened the doors on 12 September 2013, a year later than planned after Hurricane Sandy flooded the half-built site. What followed was a word-of-mouth rise that made Hometown a fixture of the city's barbecue conversation, the kind of place critics and Texans alike have grudgingly admired for a brisket that holds its own against anything south of the Mason-Dixon line.

01The room and the setting

The building itself does the talking. Durney found a century-old former woodworker's warehouse in Red Hook, vacant for decades, and turned it into a cavernous dining room fitted with timbers and panelling salvaged from an antique barn, a space one early visitor described as having a distinctly Southern, cabin-like warmth set inside a shell of raw concrete and cinderblock. The address is Van Brunt Street, but the entrance sits around the corner on Reed Street, overlooking the Fairway supermarket car park, a reminder that this stretch of the Brooklyn waterfront still feels more industrial than polished.

Two bars anchor the room, one of them built around a corner stage for live bands on weekend nights, and the whole operation runs on classic barbecue logic: order at the counter, carry your tray to a long table, and accept that the kitchen simply stops serving once the day's smoked meat runs out.

02The chef

Billy Durney is not a culinary-school graduate. He spent more than two decades in the security and private-protection trade, working advance details and travelling the world as a bodyguard, before a single bite of brisket at Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor, Texas, convinced him he wanted to spend his life over a smoker. He went back to Texas to train directly under Wayne Mueller, then brought that lesson home to the borough where his own grandparents, immigrants from Norway and Ireland, had settled generations earlier.

Insider tip

Counter service, first-come first-served; closed Mondays; reachable by NYC Ferry.

He borrowed the money to open Hometown from a family member, built the pits himself, and for the first stretch ran the place almost single-handedly, tending the fires overnight and carving every tray of meat by hand. Durney later opened Red Hook Tavern a few doors down, and expanded Hometown itself into Brooklyn's Industry City complex and a third outpost in Miami.

03The cooking

The technique is classic Southern pit work, oak-smoked meats finished low and slow, but the flavour map stretches well beyond Texas and the Carolinas. The kitchen folds in the flavour profiles of the surrounding neighbourhoods, which is how a counter built on brisket and St. Louis-style ribs also turns out Jamaican jerk chicken, Vietnamese-style hot wings, Korean sticky ribs glazed with scallion, cashews and fried shallots, and a lamb belly banh mi dressed with pickled daikon and carrot.

Everything still arrives the same unfussy way, piled onto a butcher-paper-lined metal tray with the sides in paper cups, no plating to speak of and, by most accounts, no sauce required.

04What to order

Start with the half-pound of brisket, the dish the whole operation is built on, and don't skip the beef rib if the kitchen has it that day, a single rib sold by the pound and large enough to share. The Korean sticky ribs and the Oaxacan chicken, chipotle-marinated and wood-fired with tomatillo salsa, show the kitchen's range beyond Texas orthodoxy, while the lamb banh mi sandwich and the brisket tacos on housemade corn tortillas are the clearest expression of Durney's cross-cultural instincts.

On the side, order the mac and cheese finished with a parmesan breadcrumb, the Texas-style pinto beans cooked with smoked pork, and the collard greens done the same way. Finish, if there's room, with the banana cream pudding.

05Wine and drinks

The two bars pour a run of craft beers, a wide range of American whiskeys, seasonal cocktails and a short list of wines by the glass and bottle, drinks meant to be nursed in the queue rather than paired course by course. Weekend nights bring live music to the stage built into one of the bars, part of what keeps the wait itself part of the experience rather than a chore.

06The neighbourhood

Red Hook remains one of the few corners of Brooklyn without a subway stop, which is precisely why the trip here still feels like an event: the NYC Ferry runs daily service across the harbour, landing a ten-minute walk from the door, past the breweries, wineries and waterfront warehouses that give the area its particular, half-industrial character. Hometown's own Industry City branch, inside the Sunset Park development, offers a faster, no-queue alternative with outdoor courtyard seating for anyone who wants the brisket without the pilgrimage.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.