The plates that define Memphis: what they are, and where to eat the canonical version.
The plates that define Memphis. what they are, where they came from, and where to eat the canonical version.
Memphis-style ribs are pork ribs coated in a dry spice rub of paprika, garlic, salt and pepper, slow-smoked over hickory and served without sauce. The city's defining BBQ plate.
Where: The Rendezvous, Central BBQ Downtown, The Bar-B-Q Shop, Cozy Corner BBQ
Price: $22-32 full slab
Memphis BBQ spaghetti is pulled pork tossed with tomato BBQ sauce over a pile of cooked spaghetti, a city-only Italian-American-meets-pit barbecue mash-up since 1987.
Where: The Bar-B-Q Shop, Central BBQ Downtown, A&R Bar-B-Que
Price: $5-15
The Memphis pulled pork sandwich is hickory-smoked pork shoulder pulled, piled on a soft white bun, topped with mustard slaw and a splash of BBQ sauce.
Where: Payne's Bar-B-Que, Central BBQ Downtown, A&R Bar-B-Que, The Bar-B-Q Shop
Price: $10-14
Cozy Corner's smoked Cornish hen is the city's most singular BBQ plate, a small whole bird hickory-smoked to mahogany skin, served whole with sauce on top.
Where: Cozy Corner BBQ
Price: $13
Memphis hot tamales are corn-husk-tied beef cylinders simmered in spicy broth, a Delta tradition that crossed the river with Mississippi labourers.
Where: Cozy Corner BBQ, A&R Bar-B-Que, Payne's Bar-B-Que
Price: $2-3 each
Memphis BBQ pizza is a thin-crust pie topped with shredded mozzarella, sharp cheddar and pulled pork in tomato BBQ sauce. Invented at Coletta's on South Parkway in 1954, it remains a Memphis pizzeria standard.
Where: Coletta's Italian Restaurant, Memphis Pizza Cafe
Price: $16-22
The Soul Burger at Earnestine and Hazel's is a griddled patty topped with caramelised onions, pickles and the bar's mysterious Soul Sauce, the city's defining bar burger.
Where: Earnestine and Hazel's
Price: $8
Memphis banana pudding is vanilla wafer cookies layered with sliced bananas, vanilla custard and whipped cream, a Southern soul food dessert and BBQ joint standard.
Where: The Four Way, Alcenia's, Central BBQ Downtown
Price: $4-7
Memphis BBQ nachos are tortilla chips piled with pulled pork, BBQ sauce, sour cream, jalapeños and shredded cheese, the city's defining stadium snack since the 2000s.
Where: Central BBQ Downtown, Central BBQ Midtown, The Bar-B-Q Shop
Price: $10-14
Memphis fried catfish is Mississippi farmed catfish coated in seasoned cornmeal and deep-fried until crisp, served with hush puppies and slaw. A Southern Memphis lunch standard.
Where: Soul Fish Cafe, The Four Way, Tug's Casual Grill
Price: $13-18
Memphis Graceland legend: thick-sliced white bread spread heavily with creamy peanut butter, layered with sliced bananas and crispy bacon, then griddled in butter until golden.
Where: Arcade Restaurant, Alcenia's
Price: $10-16
Memphis-style hush puppies: balls of sweet-savoury cornmeal batter flavoured with onion and a touch of sugar, deep-fried golden in the same oil as the catfish, served in a paper basket with remoulade or honey butter.
Where: Soul Fish Cafe, Alcenia's, Earnestine and Hazel's Soul Burger, Arcade Restaurant
Price: $5-10 as a side, $7-14 as a basket
Memphis-style ribs are pork ribs coated in a dry spice rub of paprika, garlic, salt and pepper, slow-smoked over hickory and served without sauce. The city's defining BBQ plate.
History: The Rendezvous's Charlie Vergos started charcoal-broiling dry-rubbed ribs in his basement off Second Street in 1948. The technique caught on through Memphis BBQ joints in the 1950s and 1960s. By the time the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest started in 1978, dry-rub Memphis ribs were the contest's defining style. Local pitmasters now split into dry-rub and wet-sauce camps, with Cozy Corner, Payne's and Central BBQ all defending the dry-rub side.
Where to try it: The Rendezvous, Central BBQ Downtown, The Bar-B-Q Shop, Cozy Corner BBQ
Watch out for: Pork
Memphis BBQ spaghetti is pulled pork tossed with tomato BBQ sauce over a pile of cooked spaghetti, a city-only Italian-American-meets-pit barbecue mash-up since 1987.
History: The Bar-B-Q Shop on Madison Avenue invented BBQ spaghetti when Frank Vernon adapted a recipe handed down from Brady Vincent at the Brady and Lil's BBQ pit. The Vernons opened the Bar-B-Q Shop in November 1987 and put BBQ spaghetti on the menu as a side. By the early 2000s the dish was on Food Network and on most Memphis BBQ counter menus as a side or full plate.
Where to try it: The Bar-B-Q Shop, Central BBQ Downtown, A&R Bar-B-Que
Watch out for: Pork, Wheat
The Memphis pulled pork sandwich is hickory-smoked pork shoulder pulled, piled on a soft white bun, topped with mustard slaw and a splash of BBQ sauce.
History: Pulled pork shoulder is the heart of Memphis BBQ alongside ribs. Pitmasters smoke whole shoulders 14 to 18 hours over hickory and pull the meat by hand. The mustard-slaw topping is a Memphis-specific signature, distinguishing it from the vinegar slaw of the Carolinas. Payne's on Lamar Avenue, opened in 1972, codified the cheap-pulled-pork-sandwich form.
Where to try it: Payne's Bar-B-Que, Central BBQ Downtown, A&R Bar-B-Que, The Bar-B-Q Shop
Watch out for: Pork, Wheat, Mustard
Cozy Corner's smoked Cornish hen is the city's most singular BBQ plate, a small whole bird hickory-smoked to mahogany skin, served whole with sauce on top.
History: Raymond Robinson opened Cozy Corner on North Parkway in 1977 and put smoked Cornish hens on the menu as a small-portion BBQ option in a Black neighbourhood with limited spending power. The hens caught on through word of mouth and became Cozy Corner's defining plate, written up by Anthony Bourdain in 2014. Cozy Corner is the only place in Memphis still serving them as a regular item.
Where to try it: Cozy Corner BBQ
Watch out for: Poultry
Memphis hot tamales are corn-husk-tied beef cylinders simmered in spicy broth, a Delta tradition that crossed the river with Mississippi labourers.
History: Hot tamales arrived in Memphis from the Mississippi Delta in the early 20th century, brought by Black field workers exposed to the dish during seasonal migration to Texas and Mexico in the early 1900s. By the 1940s, tamale carts rolled through Memphis neighbourhoods. Cozy Corner sells them today and a few BBQ shops carry them as a side; the tradition is documented by Garden and Gun and Southern Foodways Alliance.
Where to try it: Cozy Corner BBQ, A&R Bar-B-Que, Payne's Bar-B-Que
Watch out for: Beef, Corn
Memphis BBQ pizza is a thin-crust pie topped with shredded mozzarella, sharp cheddar and pulled pork in tomato BBQ sauce. Invented at Coletta's on South Parkway in 1954, it remains a Memphis pizzeria standard.
History: Coletta's on South Parkway claims to have invented BBQ pizza around 1954, two decades after the restaurant opened in 1923. Elvis Presley would order it in the original South Parkway Elvis Room. The dish is now on menus at Memphis pizzerias and a regional specialty across West Tennessee and North Mississippi.
Where to try it: Coletta's Italian Restaurant, Memphis Pizza Cafe
Watch out for: Wheat, Dairy, Pork
The Soul Burger at Earnestine and Hazel's is a griddled patty topped with caramelised onions, pickles and the bar's mysterious Soul Sauce, the city's defining bar burger.
History: Earnestine and Hazel's at 531 South Main occupies a building that has stood since around 1919, used over the decades as a cafe, jukebox bar and rumoured brothel before becoming the South Main dive bar Memphians know today. The Soul Burger sits at the heart of the room's reputation, griddled on a small flat-top and topped with the bar's house Soul Sauce, the recipe still guarded. By the 1990s the burger had become a Memphis late-night ritual.
Where to try it: Earnestine and Hazel's
Watch out for: Beef, Wheat, Dairy
Memphis banana pudding is vanilla wafer cookies layered with sliced bananas, vanilla custard and whipped cream, a Southern soul food dessert and BBQ joint standard.
History: Banana pudding entered Southern home cooking in the late 1800s after bananas became affordable. By the 1940s it was a staple of Memphis lunch counters and church suppers. The Four Way Restaurant has served it as a Sunday dessert since 1946, and most Memphis BBQ joints carry it as the closing sweet. Whipped cream caught on as the topping in the 1960s, replacing meringue.
Where to try it: The Four Way, Alcenia's, Central BBQ Downtown
Watch out for: Dairy, Eggs, Wheat
Memphis BBQ nachos are tortilla chips piled with pulled pork, BBQ sauce, sour cream, jalapeños and shredded cheese, the city's defining stadium snack since the 2000s.
History: BBQ nachos rose as a Memphis stadium snack at AutoZone Park in the early 2000s, paired with pulled pork from Rendezvous and Central BBQ. By 2010 the dish had spread to most Memphis BBQ counters. Central BBQ codified the home version and the dish remains a Memphis road-trip souvenir from the city's parade of BBQ shops, restaurants and bars.
Where to try it: Central BBQ Downtown, Central BBQ Midtown, The Bar-B-Q Shop
Watch out for: Dairy, Wheat, Pork
Memphis fried catfish is Mississippi farmed catfish coated in seasoned cornmeal and deep-fried until crisp, served with hush puppies and slaw. A Southern Memphis lunch standard.
History: Mississippi catfish farming exploded in the 1960s in the Delta and Memphis quickly became the urban hub for farmed-catfish frying. Most Memphis Southern restaurants carry it; the Four Way and Soul Fish Cafe in Cooper-Young codified the fried catfish lunch plate, and Tug's Casual Grill in Harbor Town does the riverside version.
Where to try it: Soul Fish Cafe, The Four Way, Tug's Casual Grill
Watch out for: Fish, Wheat
Memphis Graceland legend: thick-sliced white bread spread heavily with creamy peanut butter, layered with sliced bananas and crispy bacon, then griddled in butter until golden.
History: The Fried Peanut Butter, Banana and Bacon Sandwich is the canonical Elvis Presley snack, by reliable accounts cooked nightly at Graceland through the 1960s and 1970s by the King's cooks, particularly Mary Jenkins Langston. The recipe is documented in the 1991 cookbook Memories Beyond Graceland Gates by Pauline Nicholson and Mary Jenkins, with Elvis reportedly requesting up to a dozen at a time at his peak. The Memphis Arcade Restaurant (operating since 1919, claimed to be Elvis's regular booth) put a version on its menu in the 1980s and runs it as a tribute sandwich. The modern Memphis version often skips the bacon for the simpler peanut-butter-and-banana original.
Where to try it: Arcade Restaurant, Alcenia's
Watch out for: Gluten, Peanut, Dairy
Memphis-style hush puppies: balls of sweet-savoury cornmeal batter flavoured with onion and a touch of sugar, deep-fried golden in the same oil as the catfish, served in a paper basket with remoulade or honey butter.
History: Hush puppies emerged in the American South in the 19th century, with the etymological folktale claiming Confederate soldiers tossed cornbread scraps to barking dogs around the campfire with the phrase 'hush, puppies'. The dish became a Mississippi River catfish-fry tradition, with Memphis adopting it as the universal companion to fried catfish and BBQ plates. The Memphis-distinctive style includes a small amount of sugar in the batter, finely grated onion, and a hint of cayenne. They are deep-fried in the same oil as the day's catfish or chicken. Soul Fish Cafe, Earnestine and Hazel's and Alcenia's run reference versions.
Where to try it: Soul Fish Cafe, Alcenia's, Earnestine and Hazel's Soul Burger, Arcade Restaurant
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Egg
Memphis's signature dishes include Memphis dry-rub ribs, Memphis BBQ spaghetti, Memphis pulled pork sandwich, Memphis smoked Cornish hen, Memphis hot tamales. See our signature dishes chapter for where to eat each.