Smokin' showdown: Best places for a barbecue fix in Melbourne

The first barbecue festival in the Southern Hemisphere to be sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbeque Society is coming to Melbourne in January, and some big hitters from beyond the borders will be coming in with smokers blazing. How will Melbourne's barbecue bosses stack up?

Top ribs

The Beaufort ditched its Philly cheese steaks for ribs last year after a few pop-ups by Bluebonnet BBQ proved locals love wrestling with meat on the bone. Out the back of the Beaufort is the rib-dedicated Ike's Rack Shack – they also do a vegan option. Pork ribs are soft, sweet, and finger-sticking and lamb ribs have the fat properly rendered out. The beef ribs are huge and keep just enough integrity to make you work for the meat – which is half the point of eating them in the first place. Ike's Rack Shack, 421 Rathdowne Street, Carlton, ikesrackshack.com.au.

Killer brisket

Ribs are child's play for a proper pit master. Brisket – the connective tissue-rich breast cut – leaves you nowhere to hide. The meat needs to be cooked low and slow to get it right, and it takes fastidious fire-minding to make sure the beef comes out with the right balance of smokiness, juiciness and tenderness. Burn City Smokers is a side-project for Il Bacaro sommeliers Steve Kimonides and Raphael Guthrie, but they smoke with the same seriousness as they pour wine. They play around with smoking blood sausages and duck, but it's their brisket, salt and pepper rubbed, that shows their patience and palate skills. You'll need to track them down to an event via Twitter (@burncitysmokers), but if you can't wait, head to Fancy Hank's (456 Queen St, Melbourne), for their brisket sandwich, amped up with sharp cheddar, pickles and a smoky barbecue sauce. Or, if you need the reassuring comfort of bistro surrounds, try Nieuw Amsterdam (106-112 Hardware St, Melbourne) where the chefs will serve it to you with a mound of potato salad and a bright crisp 'slaw.

Condiment kings

It's all the trim that stops barbecue from being a one-dimensional meat-fest, and Fancy Hank's has nailed the sauces and pickles. Bright, vinegary pickled okra and peppers are plucked from giant brine-crusted mason jars on the counter. There's spicy-sharp Kansas-style sauce to give your meat some lift and a deep and rich coffee and molasses sauce for length. 456 Queen St, Melbourne, fancyhanks.com.

Best drawl, sweetest rig

Le Bon Ton has recently taken delivery of a Southern Pride smoker: a weapon of meat destruction crafted in the US. It's gas-powered, but it burns wood, so you've got all the benefit of proper wood smoke with perfect temperature control. You can get a casual half tonne of meat in the beast at once.51 Gipps St, Collingwood, 03 9416 4341, lebontonmelb.com.

Super sides

Everyone is currently losing their collective mind for the lobster mac and cheese at Neil Hamblen's Meatmaiden, the fancier CBD sister to his Richmond smoke shack, Meatmother. Creamy cheesy elbows are crowned with a lump of lobster tail meat with a shellfish oil adding some eau de sea to the bowl. But the winner of best all round sides goes to the boys at Lumber Yard the new restaurant out the back of Fitzroy's Worker's Club pub. The team here hails from the UK so you're getting non-traditional sides, but ones that really compliment smoked meats. The potato salad is infused with parsley liquor, there's cauliflower piccalilli, you can get black pudding and apple as a starter and there's Guinness mustard to go with your snappy skinned hot link sausages. 51 Brunswick St, Fitzroy 3065. 03 9415 6558. lumberyardfitzroy.com.

Best digs

Chris Terlikar has set up a permanent home for his previously roving operation in Collingwood. Inside you have to find a seat between the stacks of red gum that fuel the smokin' beast and there's an open kitchen where you can see Terlikar slicing up. But the magic is all in the backyard which is fringed with weatherboard and corrugated iron, with picnic tables squashed in between the big barrel of a smoker and a fairy-light slung tree. 187 Johnston St, Collingwood, 03 9972 1815, bluebonnetbbq.com.au

Runner up: Fancy Hank's BBQ joint has just permanently settled into the old Mercat pub at the Queen Victoria Markets. Here you can take your big plastic tray out to the deck where hops for home-brew are being grown. Inside, there's a big pitcher of iced tea on the bar, Fancy Hank's merchandise lining the walls and on weekends, bands armed with banjos.

The barbecue festival will take place from January 29 - February 1, melbournebarbecuefestival.com.au.

Correction: Nick Stanton is no longer the head chef at Nieuw Amsterdam. This has been amended in the story.