Ike's Rack Shack at The Beaufort

Theming a restaurant is dangerous: it's easy to tip into try-hard kitsch. But Ike's Rack Shack does it right, recreating a Texan barbecue joint with wry humour and many excursions to the plentiful hunting grounds of eBay. Ike's is the sub-branded dining room at the Beaufort, a corner pub that's now a rum-soaked saloon.

The same finger-licking food is available throughout but Ike's has table service and is decked out as though it's a verandah spilling onto an Astroturfed outdoors. The windows are boarded up, an alligator leers from a canoe and a pool table stands at the back like a squat green challenger. When a restaurant makes you giggle it's a pretty good sign.

American barbecue is a religion and I'm a heathen but I'll eat these ribs any old day.

The Triple Back Rack Stack showcases the holy trinity of pork, lamb and beef. The pork ribs are slow-smoked over hickory and applewood and glazed with bourbon. They're sticky and succulent.

Beef ribs are bigger so they're smoked longer, till the meat pulls away in relaxed peppery shreds: amp them up with the mustard-spiked barbecue sauce.

The lamb is almost gluey with fat (that's a compliment) and hot sauces are available if you want western cut-through with your country twang. Melbourne is a broad church so there are ribs to send vegan believers into rapture: they're made from polenta and quinoa with "bones" of parsnip or cheese.

Sides include jalapeno-jazzed cornbread and fancy veg dishes that would probably get a cowboy beaten up in Kansas City (grilled asparagus with smoked almonds; ancient grains and lemon harissa).

Drinks and desserts are delightfully OTT: think doughnuts with Jack Daniels drizzle and tiki-style punch-packing cocktails. Ike's is a messy, moonshiney mish-mash but it works a treat because the barbecue and the booze are taken seriously but delivered with cheeky, understated ease.

Rating: three and a half stars (out of five)