Blue Smoke

Blue Smoke strives to serve "urban barbecue," by which they mean a sampling of different BBQ styles (Kansas City, Memphis, Texas, North Carolina) that reflects the polyglot nature of the city. A laudable ambition, surely, and in a town still in the throes of a BBQ craze, a remunerative one.

We won't wade into the pitched battle over who serves the best low-and-slow meat, but we definitely enjoy our occasional visits to Blue Smoke, where we recently savored the crumbly corn bread and the piquant hush puppies with jalapeno marmalade, which we followed with scallops over grits and a well-marbled brisket sandwich. And for dessert, an ecumenical solution to the BBQ wars: rich, dense chocolate cake, served with a glass of cold milk.