Salt-and-pepper-rubbed beef brisket, smoked over post oak for 12 to 18 hours until the bark is black and the fat renders into bite. Sliced thick across the grain.

Brisket as a Texas barbecue centrepiece emerged in the 1930s Central Texas meat-market tradition (Kreuz, Smitty's, Black's in Lockhart) where butchers smoked the cheap, fatty cut to sell off unsold beef and customers ate it standing up with butcher paper for a plate. Houston's brisket tradition arrived later but went hard: Greg Gatlin opened Gatlin's BBQ in 2010, Patrick Feges and Erin Smith later opened Feges, and Leonard Botello IV opened Truth BBQ in Brenham in 2015 before moving to Heights Boulevard in 2019. Texas Monthly's Top 50 list now regularly ranks two or three Houston joints. The salt-and-pepper rub remains canonical; sauce on the side, never on top.

4 editor picks for Texas brisket in Houston, ranked by editorial score. All Houston signature dishes · Texas brisket across every city.