For barbecue fans, a destination on Route 1 – The Boston Globe
This was an expedient stop, just a regular old barbecue place with a good reputation for its brisket. But that was enough. The trees had given their hearts to the smoke, which blessed the meat, which I took unto my body, and at last I understood. All the barbecue I had previously tried was practice barbecue. This was Texas barbecue, and it was blowing my mind.
Daniel Vaughn, who writes about barbecue for Texas Monthly, has a theory: “Texas barbecue has become American barbecue,” he writes, noting how definitively the state’s tradition has spread. “Travel-worthy Texas barbecue hasn’t yet reached every state, but it’s astonishing to see how quickly our style has been adopted across the country. All-wood cooking has never been more popular, and customers from Connecticut to California are not only familiar with smoked brisket, they demand it.”
That is true in Massachusetts, where if the word “Texas” doesn’t appear in the name of a newly opened barbecue spot, it likely crops up in the description. Sometimes it’s lip service. Sometimes it’s more.
Blondie’s Barbecue opened in May near Gillette Stadium, just over the Walpole border. This is an iconic Route 1 location: It was the Red Wing Diner, established in the 1930s and closed in 2023. Your nana definitely came here for fried clams. Now it’s run by Peter and Tricia Crowley, who are also behind Cafe G at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The classic dining car entryway remains at Blondie’s, the ceiling curving over the counter where you place your order. There’s a dining room decorated with cow wallpaper, old horseshoes, vintage beer trays, and framed album covers, a note-perfect mix of style and kitsch. But the real action is outside.
Beneath a corrugated metal structure, pit master Ian Gormley stands between two 1,000-gallon offset smokers made from decommissioned propane tanks. They’re fueled by wood and only wood, logs flaming and smoldering in the fireboxes at one end. The smell of smoke from New England red oak is in the air, warm and toasty and autumnal. Can true barbecue aficionados taste the difference between brisket smoked with wood from different regions, the same way New York bagel devotees claim the local water is key, a kind of terroir? All I know is Gormley, who previously ran the Rhode Island pop-up Our Table Barbecue, makes excellent brisket.
Like, dang. Would you look at it? That black bark, firm and flavorful; that visibly tender meat. It tastes deep and rich, the fat rendered, the meat juicy, seasoned by smoke but not overpowered by it. Brisket is tricky, a big, irregular cut that’s lean in parts and fatty in others. Maybe that’s why at the Jewish holiday tables of my childhood it was often braised into submission, any dryness ultimately cloaked by saucy gravy. I usually just ate the chicken. Barbecue redeemed brisket for me. Blondie’s has good sauces — a zingy house barbecue sauce, a honey-mustardy Carolina, and a spicier salsa verde — but that brisket, prime Angus beef with a black pepper rub, stands on its own.
Just as good in its own way is the house sausage, in a style sometimes known as “Texas hot guts,” warmly spicy and smoky with satisfyingly snappy skins. There’s also pulled pork, alone or on a sandwich with crisp fried onions and slaw; Berkshire pork ribs; smoked turkey breast. There are specials, depending on inspiration and ingredient availability: carnitas tacos, brisket meatballs, Southern fried chicken, smoked bone-in pork chops with apple, tomato, and jalapeno salsa.
And the sides are much more than a side show. They make Blondie’s stand out. Campfire beans are meaty, tender pintos interspersed with bites of brisket and charred tomatillos. Shells and cheese are satisfyingly gooey. There are seasonal vegetable sides, like beets with cilantro and crumbled queso; summer’s salads of grilled corn and garden tomatoes from Ward’s Berry Farm are gone for now.
If every meal started with Texas Twinkies — cheese-stuffed jalapenos wrapped in bacon and smoked — and included Blondie’s brown butter cornbread, I would not be sad. My husband is obsessed with Blondie’s banana pudding, so light and fluffy and creamy and sweet. (A longtime Patriots season ticket holder, he has vowed to bring the tailgate to the outdoor picnic tables here sometime soon. Blondie’s also offers barbecue packages to go, making it a worthy stop on the way to the lot.) Beer is on ice in buckets, from Miller Lite to Zero Gravity Oktoberfest to Blondie’s Beer (a partnership with Castle Island Brewing), as are flasks of cocktails with names like Route 1 Rum Runner and Dorothy’s Drama Juice, a potent and puckery blend made with prickly pear and vodka. Blondie’s is hosting a beer dinner with Widowmaker Brewing Co. Oct. 21.
This all feels like what happens when a chef who trained at the Culinary Institute of America turns his hand to barbecue. That would be Pete Crowley, whose team at Cafe G transforms local, seasonal, organic ingredients into dishes such as maple-roasted squash and burrata salad, pan-seared cod cakes with remoulade and spicy Haitian pikliz, and pear tarte tatin with candied sunflower seeds. Chef Chris Rainville, who oversees kitchen operations here, long worked at the museum with Crowley. Blondie’s feels like pure, serious fun, a counterpart not a contradiction.
“Hey @michelinguide we heard you’re in MA and yall like barbecue now,” Gormley recently posted on Instagram, with a gorgeous picture of brisket. When the dining guide debuted in Texas last year (as it will soon here), it gave stars to four barbecue spots. Smoked meat is as demanding a chef’s pursuit as any, and done right, it is fine dining indeed. Barbecue fans in Massachusetts often journey to the excellent B.T.’s Smokehouse in Sturbridge for their fix. In Walpole, on the side of Route 1, there’s a new roadside joint worth visiting. The oak smoke is in the air, and Blondie’s brisket is calling.
2235 Providence Highway, Walpole, 508-921-3023, www.blondiesbarbecue.com. Meats $15-$17 per half-pound, sandwiches $15-$16, snacks $5-$14, sides $5-$9, combo platters $23-$25, cocktails $12-$14.
Devra First can be reached at devra.first@globe.com. Follow her on Instagram @devrafirst.