Duke's Brew & Que: brilliant beneath the surface

The details are wrong, but the concept perfect.

If by some mad chance you've read one of my reviews before, you'll know that I'm a sucker for a good beer list. That's why I started my (admittedly much more successful) other foodie project, the Craft Beer Channel.

Now, some restaurants have great beer lists. Byron for one, who work with Camden Town Brewery to find new brews and even make their own lager. The Fish & Chip Shop have a decent list too, and of course MEATliquor, Honest et al champion good beers as well. In fact, after a slightly lacklustre meat fest at Smokehouse, it was their incredible craft beer list that really saved they day (they had Mikkeller on DRAUGHT for god's sake).

But Duke's Brew & Que, where I went on a cold, rainy, kind-of-Christmassy "ladz" night, is off the scale. Firstly it's attached to Beavertown Brewery, one of the finest new London breweries, so it has their entire back catalogue. Their Gamma Ray and Smog Rocket in particular are fantastic, and Neck Oil, a session IPA, is pretty damned flavourful too for 4.2%.

But like every good brewery bar, they also stock a load of other breweries' booze, rightly to champion the entire movement. And boy did they have some fantastic stuff, including heaven of heavens - Dark Star Revelation, one of my favourite beers of all time.

But enough of that. As a place it's strange. The outside is lined with a tent, like it's undergoing Fumigation. Inside it has a diner-esque feel that's nice and buzzy, but with the bar taking up such a large amount of the room if you're sat at a bad table you can feel a little like you're on display. This unease wasnt helped by how rushed we were. I do find it bizarre when restaurants say "we can get you a table, but we need it back within 90 minutes". As if that's up to us. Any delays are going to be cause by the waiters and chefs, not the diners.

Ahem. That said, with a friend running late, we necked two pints and then were forced to order for him. So we got four of their platters, featuring a foot-long beef rib, pork rib, pulled pork, slaw, pickles and Parmesan bread. If that sounds like a lot, that's because it is.

But then he didn't show up.

I didn't realise quite how much I'd eaten until, four days later, I still couldn't say (or indeed write) the words "beef rib" without starting to sweat. But that was partly because, despite the brilliance of the pork rib and the dry but delicious pulled pork, the beef was way, way overdone. The blackened crust was honestly about a centimetre thick, and tough as crackling. And it wasn't just mine, every rib that went by was charred to hell and dry as, well, a bone. That didn't stop us getting all the meat off though, because once you were through the crust the meat was seriously flavoursome. When it came to our extra plate of food though, we were fighting over everything else first, even the chips (I was banned from ordering a salad).

It's a very hip, happening places. The average thickness of people's glasses rims was well over half a centimetre and the bearded brigade were in full force. And that's a good thing by the way. You were surrounded by people who loved good food and beer. Usually there were even a few people dining alone, showing that the place is so loved that it's become sustenance, rather than a great way to meet friends.

Duke's is one of those places that people go all misty-eyed about. But I'd file it in the Tayyabs cabinet - only the uncurious think it's brilliant, because they haven't found somewhere better. Pitt Cue is now the barbecue place to beat, and no where else I have been has come close, even if it's trying to seduce me with copious good beer.

Pitt Cue Co: Queue won't believe your eyes

The best barbecue restaurant in London. If you can wait.

"That was mighty meaty. How're the passages? Mine were hectic this morning."

So went a text from my dining companion at Pitt Cue the following day. Note how, despite enduring a difficult morning, there is not a hint of criticism in his tone. No implication of regret. It was all worth it.

And worth it is probably the best way to describe Pitt Cue. There are barriers a-plenty to you getting a meal there, and we came up against all of them when we bit the bullet and decided, once again, to queue for our dinner, like communists in war time.

We arrived at 6.11 on a sunny Thursday evening, expecting that not many people would want to chow down on pork in a meat dungeon on such a beautiful day. So we joined the HOUR LONG QUEUE and set about getting to know our neighbours, which was a good plan, as they came in handy a little later.

I will never understand the need to make people queue for food. Booking doesn't deprive anyone. It just means the organised people get the best dinners, which is a form of natural selection. Letting anyone turn up and wait for a table is ruining the theory of evolution. If this trend for queues continues, we might all end up with tiny upper bodies, massive legs, and an unhealthy patience for queues. Society would fall apart, even if the Post Office has a resurgence.

We'd been working up a sweat in the queue for about 15 minutes when we clocked that our fellow prospective diners were drinking beers from the pub opposite, a system that we thought was probably championed by both establishments. Sadly we were mistaken. Not only did the depressed bouncer, who looked a lot like Neil Warnock, take exception to us taking glasses off the premises, but he decided to accuse me of starting the trend. The whole queue moaned and stared as they were ushered into the pub by Neil. For what it's worth, I apologise to you all.

Luckily, the couple in front of us who we had got chatting to had paper cups, so we transferred our drinks and looked sheepish as the rest of our future co-diners scowled at us.

45 minutes in and the novelty of the beer, and the beer itself, had run out. We had been second in the queue for most of that time and made no progress, however chirpy and friendly our tireless future waiter was being (and she was VERY chirpy). Finally though, just as the sun threatened to dip below the buildings of Carnaby Street, we entered the restaurant.

Or at least the bar part, where you have to wait for another forty-five minutes. Luckily at this point you can start drinking their fun-looking cocktails and small but perfectly formed beer list (which includes London's own, glorious Kernel pale ale). You also get a tab in the form of a toy cow. I thought ours was called Steven. Sadly the system is less imaginative (see right).

One hour fifteen into queuing we were offered a seat in the upstairs bar. Our waitress assured us that, while it meant sitting in high chairs, with our feet dangling like bemused toddlers, we would jump the queue and avoid having to enter the sweat dungeon formed below by the sweltering heat. We took that option, and revelled in our position, overlooking those we had been queuing with just hours ago.

Sadly we were also in direct sun, protected only by some flimsy net curtains. It was only a matter of time before one of us passed out. To be fair, once we had ordered, the food came incredibly quickly. I guess because they can only seat 34 people at a time. I ordered the dish they are known for - pork ribs - while my friend went for the more adventurous deep-fried pig's head terrine burger, otherwise known as diabetes in bread. We were told the chefs were extremely excited about the latter dish. When there are only five dishes on offer I'd expect the chefs to be excited about every one. They need to justify their place on the menu.

The ribs did. I've tasted more succulent meat (and not had to queue for it) but the marinade was fantastic - smoky, tangy and dynamite with my BBQ beans. The terrine burger however, in a sweet Chinese-like sauce, had a limp texture and distinct Bird's Eye Sweet & Sour chicken sauce feel to it - all sugary and processed. The kind of late night ready-meal you buy from a suicidal moonlighter in an Esso Garage. My companion's chipotle slaw, however, was something else. Creamy but light, spicy but subtle and satisfyingly crunchy.

The flaws in the meal only made Pitt Cue feel more like a local secret - a fact these almost-pop-up restaurants all over London must feed off. That's no bad thing, the small, homegrown feel of these places makes me fall for all of them. You really get the sense of a business brought together by friends, family and couples. You feel that rewarding sense of small-time ambition; of one person's dream to open a restaurant coming true when they find one dish they can do better than anywhere else. The passion and excitement about the food is somehow clear in the ingredients, flavours, presentation, atmosphere and, most obviously, in the people themselves.

Pitt Cue isn't so much a meat lover's paradise. The portions aren't huge, even if they are presented on beautiful Shawshank Redemption-style iron trays, and the food isn't as decadent or indulgent as expected. It's more of a meat-geek convention. You could get great ribs for less money without queueing in several places in London. But you wouldn't get the beer list, the stunning sides, the invention, the crude texts the next day, or the wonderful sense that this queueing malarky is so. often. worth. it.

http://www.pittcue.co.uk/
1 Newburgh Street
Soho
W1F 7RB