It didn’t take long for a perspicacious 14-year-old acquaintance of mine to sit down and absorb the vibe in County Barbeque before she declared, “It’s so fake.” I’m guessing Michael Kornick and David Morton are hoping UIC underclassmen are less world-weary.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
When that sort of effort is spent creating a fantasy to complement the food, you wonder how much energy is left over to spend on barbecue itself. To be fair, University Village has so far escaped barbecue saturation, and who’s to say the students and professionals that orbit the school and medical center don’t deserve their rib tips, their Texas brisket, their Kansas City burnt ends, and their Saint Louis spare ribs? But you see what’s happening here. It’s a regionally nonspecific barbecue restaurant, which is basically another way of saying it’s a restaurant with a fear of commitment to a particular style—a blunderbuss approach that might deliver something for anyone. Or not.
To its credit—and as a testament to the confidence Kornick and Morton must have in chef Erick Williams—all the barbecue offered here arrives at the table unsauced (unless it’s on a sandwich).
Those tomatoes—also available as a side of three perfectly crispy, tart, peppery battered disks with a dollop of goat cheese—show that Williams, who got his start and rose to executive chef at Kornick’s MK, is a perfectly capable chef, just not a pit master. Nearly everything tasty at County Barbeque never saw the inside of the smoker. That includes a sizable pork shank, braised and fried until its exterior is crispy, and a number of sides including sweet collard greens, garlicky sauteed kale, cheesy grits, and vinegary coleslaw. It’s a telling sign at a place purporting to do barbecue when the sides are better than the main attraction. Barbecue is rocket science compared to making a good corn pudding or blackened cauliflower. In all, though, portions are small (most meats are about seven ounces) and prices are commensurate, including cheap pours of decent whiskey and sweet, light cocktails in juice glasses—which will certainly appeal to the captive student population in the neighborhood.
1352 W. Taylor 312-929-2528 countybarbeque.com
