Brisket, brews and 'shitty white bread': Inside Canberra's barbecue hit

The heart wants what it wants, and sometimes what it wants is meat.

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Maybe it's steak - in which case, you can head to the pub, or to one of a number of high-end steak joints that have sprung up around town in recent years.

If it's roasts, or Korean barbecue, or stone-grilled, there are also plenty of options.

A Texas barbeque platter by Big Box BBQ - note the bread. Picture supplied

In the case of his joint Big Box BBQ, which has been at Narrabundah shops for just over a year, this involves Wagyu brisket, pickles, sauce and shitty white bread.

Literally, that's what it says on the menu - "shitty white bread". Because according to Box, that's what Texas barbecue is all about.

"It's the simplicity that gets people - you're literally looking at salt and pepper and quality ingredients, cooked over live fire for an elongated period of time," he says.

"You can make something that's incredibly tough, incredibly tender, and there's also something quite beautiful about looking after a fire and having the outcome that you have from people's faces when they try it. There's something special about the natural reaction to just having something like brisket, salt, and pepper, and the face just changes, and there's that reaction when they just go, 'oh', and their body just kind of goes weak for a bit."

He's at pains to point out that while the concept is simple, it's a technique that needs to be mastered over time.

"If you can't master the simple things, don't try it, basically," he says.

Big Box BBQ will be running a pop-up at Capital Brewing on Dairy Road from November 6 and throughout the summer; as we speak, there's a crane all prepped to lower a 500-gallon smoker in a four-and-a-half-metre trailer into the beer garden.

Michel Box of Big Box BBQ, left, and head brewer at Capital Brewing Co. Wade Hurley. Picture supplied

We know that Canberrans love a crane - or at least the new beginnings that might come with the appearance of a crane - but Box and the folk at Capital's taphouse think they might be onto something with the summer combination of brisket and craft beer.

And of course, there's much more to classic Texas barbecue than just meat and butter. There are the house-made pickles, and the honey cornbread, the potato salad and the tangy glazed pork ribs.

"Our honey butter cornbread is what everybody seems to just absolutely drop everything for to buy," Box says.

"We're using Crookwell honey, and we're just placing it on a very traditional style of cornbread. Everything for us comes with bread, pickles and sauces as standard, so that you're going to create your own mini platter."

Or you can go big, with several meats and sides, all with slices of that pappy, Tip-Top-style bread, by default.

"Texas-style barbecue is something that is unique, especially to Australia. There's obviously the big guys around the country, but more so to Canberra ... I like to think of myself as Texas-inspired and Canberra-cooked."

Ah, Texas, Texas, Texas. Box has never been to the place - in fact, he's only been to the US once, when he was seven - but he bloody loves it anyway.

"People have been starting to say, 'Oh God, Texas barbecue', and then they have this beautiful political opinion. But they don't actually know I'm English," he says.

"I don't know, depending on which way you go, which one's worse."

The Essex-born chef - he moved to Canberra 10 years ago to be the executive chef at QT - has always had a thing about barbecue, the one gap he could see in Canberra's food landscape, especially since Smoque closed in Civic, also a decade ago, having sparked a local love affair with American-style ribs and wings (and barely a vegetable in sight).

The experience of a Texas barbeque platter by Big Box BBQ. Picture supplied

"My goal that I set out for this ... was to get a formality of score for it - I would just love that, that that would be everything to me," he says.

"It's a point of reference and a point of difference. I stand by what the product is, I really do. And from three years ago to now, it's chalk and cheese, and the style, the quality, the consistency, and the fact that people come here for it. And I've built a little brand, which is amazing. And I didn't ever think I was able to do it.

"It's a lot of self-doubt to a lot of self-confidence."

In other words, he's gone from British self-effacement to unflappable American self-belief, and he reckons he's earned it.

"There's not an ego behind it - it's genuine, it's humble," he says.

"To go through men's mental health issues and basically find the love of this this style of food to then every day work every single thing and be able to make say 99 per cent of it by hand, and then to see it in front of our customers ... It's phenomenal. It's a beautiful thing.

"I guess that's where the self confidence comes from, because originally it was all full of self-doubt."

• The Big Box BBQ summer pop-up opens at Capital Brewing Co, Fyshwick Taproom, Dairy Road from November 6, throughout summer. Open Friday to Sunday, 11.30am until sold out.