The plates that define Kansas City: what they are, and where to eat the canonical version.
The plates that define Kansas City. what they are, where they came from, and where to eat the canonical version.
The crusted, caramelised tips of a beef brisket point, smoked low for 15 hours, hand-cubed and sometimes returned to the smoker. Sweet, smoky, fatty, the defining Kansas City barbecue plate.
Where: Arthur Bryant's Barbeque, Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que, Q39 Midtown, Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue Freight House, Slap's BBQ
Price: $15 to $25 a plate
A bone-in striploin steak cut traditionally with the side bone left on. The city's stockyards-era contribution to American steak culture, drier and beefier than its New York cousin.
Where: Golden Ox, The Capital Grille, Anton's Taproom, Stroud's Oak Ridge Manor
Price: $48 to $80
Slow-smoked brisket, smoked provolone, two crispy onion rings and barbecue sauce on a kaiser roll. The signature sandwich Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que built at the working Shamrock gas station shortly after opening in 1996.
Where: Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que
Price: $12 to $14
The tomato-based, molasses-sweet, vinegar-tangy sauce that defines Kansas City barbecue. Thick, sweet, slightly smoky, sometimes with cayenne heat layered in for a slow burn.
Where: Arthur Bryant's Barbeque, Gates Bar-B-Q, Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que, Q39 Midtown
Price: Sauce sold by the bottle, $8 to $15
Pork spareribs trimmed St Louis-style, dry-rubbed and slow-smoked over hickory until the meat pulls cleanly, glazed with thick Kansas City sauce in the final 15 minutes.
Where: Arthur Bryant's Barbeque, Gates Bar-B-Q, Q39 Midtown, Slap's BBQ, Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que
Price: $22 to $32 for a half rack
Bone-in fried chicken pan-cooked in cast iron with pan gravy, served family-style with mashed potatoes and the legendary cinnamon rolls. Crispy crust, juicy meat, no batter shortcuts.
Where: Stroud's Oak Ridge Manor
Price: $22 to $32
Chicken cutlets breaded with herbed Italian breadcrumbs and Parmesan, threaded on skewers, grilled and finished with amogio sauce of olive oil, lemon and garlic.
Where: Garozzo's Ristorante
Price: $22 to $28
A thin-pressed, smashed beef patty made from steak trimmings, served on a toasted bun with mustard, onion and pickles. Lean, beefy, fast-food in form but butcher-shop in source.
Where: Winstead's Steakburger Plaza, Town Topic Hamburgers, Westport Flea Market Bar and Grill
Price: $5 to $10
A Croatian sweet bread, rolled paper-thin with walnut, cinnamon and brown sugar filling, baked into loaves with a swirled cross-section. A holiday tradition in Strawberry Hill.
Where: Strawberry Hill Povitica
Price: $24 a loaf
A school-cafeteria pairing that became a Kansas City classic: a yeast-leavened cinnamon roll served as the side dish to a bowl of chili, often at lunch counters and meat-and-three rooms.
Where: Stroud's Oak Ridge Manor, McLain's Bakery, Heirloom Bakery and Hearth
Price: $10 to $15
The crusted, caramelised tips of a beef brisket point, smoked low for 15 hours, hand-cubed and sometimes returned to the smoker. Sweet, smoky, fatty, the defining Kansas City barbecue plate.
History: Burnt ends started as the brisket scraps Arthur Bryant gave away at the counter on Brooklyn Avenue. Calvin Trillin's 1974 Playboy essay declaring Bryant's the single best restaurant in the world made Kansas City barbecue national news; the burnt ends became the proof-of-concept dish. Today every Kansas City BBQ joint offers them, made from the brisket point alone, sliced or cubed, with sauce on the side or worked into the bark.
Where to try it: Arthur Bryant's Barbeque, Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que, Q39 Midtown, Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue Freight House, Slap's BBQ
A bone-in striploin steak cut traditionally with the side bone left on. The city's stockyards-era contribution to American steak culture, drier and beefier than its New York cousin.
History: The Kansas City strip steak was born at the Golden Ox steakhouse in the West Bottoms in 1949, when the Live Stock Exchange held the second-largest cattle market in the country. The cut keeps the bone for flavour but trims more closely than the porterhouse. Plaza III and other Plaza steakhouses standardised the cut through the 1960s; the name persists today on every metro steakhouse menu.
Where to try it: Golden Ox, The Capital Grille, Anton's Taproom, Stroud's Oak Ridge Manor
Slow-smoked brisket, smoked provolone, two crispy onion rings and barbecue sauce on a kaiser roll. The signature sandwich Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que built at the working Shamrock gas station shortly after opening in 1996.
History: Jeff and Joy Stehney built Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que (then Oklahoma Joe's) inside a working Shamrock gas station at 47th and Mission in Kansas City, Kansas in 1996 from their competition-circuit success. The Z-Man, layered brisket with smoked provolone and onion rings on a kaiser, was named in 1997 after Kansas City radio host Mike Zarrick (aka The Z-Man), who ran a fan naming contest that kept the on-air nickname. The sandwich became Joe's signature and now defines the city's sandwich-format barbecue.
Where to try it: Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Egg
The tomato-based, molasses-sweet, vinegar-tangy sauce that defines Kansas City barbecue. Thick, sweet, slightly smoky, sometimes with cayenne heat layered in for a slow burn.
History: Henry Perry, the father of Kansas City barbecue, served his meats with a peppery vinegar sauce starting in 1908. The current tomato-and-molasses base evolved through Arthur Bryant's house sauce (rust-orange, vinegar-forward) and Gates' sweeter style. KC Masterpiece, developed in 1977 by Kansas City psychiatrist Rich Davis, cemented the sweet-smoky template and carried the city's sauce style nationally.
Where to try it: Arthur Bryant's Barbeque, Gates Bar-B-Q, Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que, Q39 Midtown
Pork spareribs trimmed St Louis-style, dry-rubbed and slow-smoked over hickory until the meat pulls cleanly, glazed with thick Kansas City sauce in the final 15 minutes.
History: Kansas City pitmasters built the spare-rib programme out of the African American barbecue tradition Henry Perry brought from Shelby County, Tennessee in 1908. The cooking method spread through the Bryant, Gates and Stehney families to the modern competition circuit. Burnt ends get the headlines; ribs are the locals' second-favourite plate.
Where to try it: Arthur Bryant's Barbeque, Gates Bar-B-Q, Q39 Midtown, Slap's BBQ, Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que
Bone-in fried chicken pan-cooked in cast iron with pan gravy, served family-style with mashed potatoes and the legendary cinnamon rolls. Crispy crust, juicy meat, no batter shortcuts.
History: Guy and Helen Stroud opened the first Stroud's at 85th and Troost in 1933 as a roadhouse serving barbecue, switching to pan-fried chicken during World War II beef rationing. The pan-frying method, seasoned flour and no batter, became the Kansas City standard. The Oak Ridge Manor location, a restored 1840s log-cabin homestead, was added in 1983 and continues to serve cinnamon rolls with every plate.
Where to try it: Stroud's Oak Ridge Manor
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
Chicken cutlets breaded with herbed Italian breadcrumbs and Parmesan, threaded on skewers, grilled and finished with amogio sauce of olive oil, lemon and garlic.
History: Mike Garozzo invented chicken spiedini at Garozzo's in Columbus Park in 1989. The dish travels through Italian-American Kansas City lore: not a Sicilian classic but a Kansas City original, served at virtually every old-line Italian room in town. Now on menus from Cascone's to Jasper's, but Garozzo's claims the original.
Where to try it: Garozzo's Ristorante
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
A thin-pressed, smashed beef patty made from steak trimmings, served on a toasted bun with mustard, onion and pickles. Lean, beefy, fast-food in form but butcher-shop in source.
History: Winstead's opened in 1940 just east of the Country Club Plaza near 47th and Main as a Streamline Moderne drive-in, with the steakburger built from in-house steak trimmings. The pressed-patty method spread through other Kansas City drive-ins; Town Topic on Broadway has run a similar burger since 1937. The steakburger is the city's pre-McDonald's, pre-fast-food fast food.
Where to try it: Winstead's Steakburger Plaza, Town Topic Hamburgers, Westport Flea Market Bar and Grill
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
A Croatian sweet bread, rolled paper-thin with walnut, cinnamon and brown sugar filling, baked into loaves with a swirled cross-section. A holiday tradition in Strawberry Hill.
History: Croatian immigrants settled Strawberry Hill, the bluff overlooking the Kansas and Missouri river confluence, from the 1880s through World War I. Strawberry Hill Baking Company has carried the povitica tradition since 1903. The neighbourhood remains home to Krizman's Sausage and other Slavic shops; povitica is now nationally known as a Kansas City holiday gift.
Where to try it: Strawberry Hill Povitica
Watch out for: Gluten, Nuts, Dairy, Egg
A school-cafeteria pairing that became a Kansas City classic: a yeast-leavened cinnamon roll served as the side dish to a bowl of chili, often at lunch counters and meat-and-three rooms.
History: The cinnamon-roll-with-chili pairing came out of Kansas City school cafeterias in the 1960s, where chefs scaled bakery-counter rolls for school lunch programmes and paired them with chili as the protein. Stroud's, which had been serving cinnamon rolls with fried chicken since 1933, helped cement the format. The combination spread to truck stops and lunch counters across western Missouri and eastern Kansas.
Where to try it: Stroud's Oak Ridge Manor, McLain's Bakery, Heirloom Bakery and Hearth
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Egg
Kansas City's signature dishes include Burnt ends, Kansas City strip steak, Z-Man sandwich, Kansas City barbecue sauce, Kansas City-style ribs. See our signature dishes chapter for where to eat each.