Let’s state the obvious first: Cooking brisket is hard. When Pat Martin opened his first restaurant in Nolensville a decade ago, he had years of smoking pigs under his belt. But in the week before Martin’s opened, he concluded that a barbecue place probably ought to offer brisket, so he threw it on the menu with little experience cooking the cut. The results were … not great. Eventually he figured out how to wrangle the signature beef cut into something good, but it took a lot of time and practice.
The tricky part about brisket is that it’s a significantly leaner cut of meat than your average pork shoulder and therefore a lot less forgiving. A lot of places that serve brisket serve the barbecue equivalent of shoe leather, only drier. Why? Because the Tennessee tradition is pig. So it only makes sense that if you want truly transcendent beef, Nashville needed a Texas transplant. Enter Bill Laviolette and Shotgun Willie’s on Gallatin Pike.
When Laviolette plops his briskets onto the cutting surface, there’s a jiggle to them. When he slices first through that peppery crust and pink smoke ring and into the heart of the brisket, he has to steady the entire piece of meat to make even slices because it’s so tender. Try to pick up a slice with your fingers and it may fall apart. This is not Tennessee brisket.
The taste is pure heaven, a sublime combination of beef and smoke. And if all he sold was that brisket, Laviolette would have a great business. But his sides are legit: creamy mac-and-cheese, smoked green beans, crunchy coleslaw with a little bit of vinegar and baked beans so good they will make you rethink your lifelong allegiance to the ketchupy version you grew up with. Make the trek to Inglewood. It won’t be your last. STEVE CAVENDISH
