100 Favorite Dishes, No. 89: Smoked Chicken at The Blind Butcher

In a city of shrines to meat — barbecue joints, steakhouses, burger bars, bacon tastings — the Blind Butcher is one of the most holy. Its rotating selection of house-made sausage is justly famous, as are the poutines, pastrami egg rolls and bacon-studded ice cream sandwich. But in 2016, chef...

By Brian Reinhart

June 12, 2016

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Leading up to September's Best of Dallas® 2016 issue, we're sharing (in no particular order) our 100 Favorite Dishes, the Dallas entrées, appetizers and desserts that really stuck with us this year.

In a city of shrines to meat — barbecue joints, steakhouses, burger bars, bacon tastings — the Blind Butcher is one of the most holy. Its rotating selection of house-made sausage is justly famous, as are the poutines, pastrami egg rolls and bacon-studded ice cream sandwich. But in 2016, chef Oliver Sitrin and his crew have introduced their masterpiece: smoked chicken.

Inspired by an old Southern barbecue tradition, Blind Butcher nestles its chicken at the very bottom of the smoker, underneath all the brisket, duck, pastrami, sausage and whatever else might be cookin’. The birds baste continually in the juices of those meats, taking on a deep savory flavor that blends smoke with earthy hints of flavors like sage and bacon fat.

Even the breast meat is fall-apart tender and juicy. It’s a mind-boggling dish, and if serving it with an additional garlic-butter sauce sounds like overkill, hey, we’re Texas. We love overkill. Especially when overkill tastes as great as the Blind Butcher’s smoked half chicken.

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Brian Reinhart has been the Dallas Observer's food critic since spring 2016. In addition, he writes baseball analysis for the Hardball Times and covers classical music for the Observer and MusicWeb International.

Contact: Brian Reinhart

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