The American Barbecue Showdown (Barbecue Showdown)

Welcome to the heart of America.

Barbecue country.

Home to the ultimate test of pit fire mastery.

I'm talking about the one and only Barbecue Showdown.

The sexiest thing in barbecue.

Oh!

We're back!

Whoo!

- And we did not come to play. - Yep.

Buckle up, buttercup.

Tens of thousands applied,

but only nine of the most talented barbecue cooks in America made the cut.

I just hope this decision I made was a good one.

Amen, sister.

These cooks are here to show us their stuff.

Yes! Oh, look at that.

And you won't believe what we have in store for them.

Ooh, I love a plot twist!

We're serving up some tangy twists.

What?

- Are you serious? - Told y'all things was gonna be different.

What is going on, Lord?

They'll either shine bright...

You won. You hit the jackpot 'cause this is good, girl.

I thought I was going home for sure.

...or burn out.

What I did was put my heart on the table.

Time for a shot. Or two. Or three. Or four.

Honey, we've even brought along some new friends.

-Chef Matheson! -Hello!

Hey!

-Here you go. Little chicken sandwich... -There you go.

Tuffy Stone is standing there in front of me. This is gonna be huge.

Chef Kwame Onwuachi.

I really gotta bring it today.

Things will get full-on fired up.

Holy Lord.

Hope y'all brought your appetites...

-I'll be over for supper, I promise you. -That's a juicy piece right there.

...'cause this showdown is about to get lit.

My favorite thing to do. Playing with fire.

Ooh, it's hot there, isn't it?

We gotta get smokin'!

Mm-hmm.

We're here!

Yes! Hey, I'm Shaticka.

-Staci. Nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you. Where you from?

- Kentucky. - What's up? Let's go!

I'm extremely competitive. I've been competitive my whole life.

Let's go!

I can go out here and do this just as good as any man can,

and that's how I feel. I don't care who you are.

Let's go, cowboy!

I've won titles. I've won buckles in rodeos.

I've won chuck wagon competitions.

But this is a bull I've never been on in my life,

so let's get him in the chute.

Let's get it ready 'cause this cowboy's ready to ride.

What's up? What's up? What's up, y'all?

Oh my God!

I absolutely cannot believe I'm on Barbecue Showdown.

I'm still waiting for somebody to say, "Psych!"

I'm literally living my wildest dreams right now.

- Hey! - Good morning, everybody.

Oh my God!

Gather round, you little barbecuties.

What's up, everyone?

Welcome to Barbecue Showdown .

And if you don't already know, I'm your host, Michelle Buteau. Hey!

And truly, you nine are the best in barbecue.

You have the secret sauce to make you stand out.

But only one of you guys

is gonna walk away with a $50,000 cash prize...

-Yes! -Oh my God.

...a new offset smoker...

Oh, all right.

...and the title of Barbecue Showdown Champion.

Yeah!

These two, your judges, they know all about making cuts.

You know 'em. You love 'em. You probably had nightmares about 'em.

Ding-ding!

Give it up for world-renowned barbecue legends

Melissa Cookston and Kevin Bludso.

Let's go, yes!

Kevin is a James Beard award-winning pit master,

a New York Times bestseller,

and he Mr. Low and Slow in a '64.

Okay!

You guys are the best at what you do.

More important, you love what you do.

Bring that today. I need to taste your heart and soul on that plate.

And, of course, a barbecue icon.

She's a pit master,

a restaurateur,

and seven-time world barbecue champion,

Melissa Cookston.

-Yeah! -Okay.

Succeeding in this competition is all about technique and execution,

and we've got a whole new playground for you to bring the fire.

Every square inch of this barbecue compound is yours to use.

Behind me, you've got a smoke shack

with all the state-of-the-art equipment you could ask for

and a supersized pantry of incredible ingredients.

And right now, you're standing in the pits

with even more pro-level barbecue toys for you to play with.

Nice.

Everything from offset smokers to ceramics, barrels to open fire.

We've got it all.

-Yeah. -Let's go.

And your meat locker over there is stocked with all the finest prime cuts imaginable.

All right!

But we're not here to mess around.

When you step into those pits, you need to be prepared for battle.

Every single cook is your chance to prove what you're made of,

and every mistake could be a ticket home.

We know the nine of you are some of the baddest barbecuers in the game.

But are you bad to the bone?

-Oh! -All right!

For the first challenge,

you'll have five and a half hours.

Each of you will be barbecuing

a big, bad, bone-in protein

with a scratch rub or sauce and two sides,

all of which need to represent

your personal style and story.

But you'll be slicing your bone-in meats table-side,

so we can see that perfect cross section.

We're looking for tender, juicy cuts of meat

with an even color all the way through.

When y'all slice and cut that baby open, I need to hear Beyoncé singing in my ear.

-Y'all ready? -Yeah! Bring it on!

In three, two...

one! Get smokin'!

It's exciting!

You grab the whole thing? Did you grab the whole thing?

- Oh man. - We gotta get how many?

Are we really grabbing the whole thing?

I'm like, I'm letting y'all kill y'all selves first!

Ooh!

I'm double-checking one more time. We're going here.

Cannot wait, baby.

This is a wild first challenge.

Bone-in protein.

You have to tell your story.

How do you even do all that stuff?

It's gonna start by picking the right protein.

Pick something that you know, that you're familiar with.

There's enough meat in there. Bone-in is typically a longer cook.

Why does it take longer to cook bone-in meat?

I think there's a common misconception

that the bone radiates heat.

That bone takes a long time to heat up, and it does not radiate heat.

So that's why you might order a medium steak,

but up next to that bone, it's still rare.

- Yeah. - Mmm.

Being from Kentucky, bison, you know,

they used to run free

and used to have all different trails that went across the state.

For this challenge, I'm choosing to do bison spare ribs.

True Kentucky girl all the way.

I've actually worked with buffalo quite a bit.

I love the flavor. It's really beefy. It's like a beef ten times on steroids.

Hair is up. It's all business.

So I grabbed the bone-in chuck short ribs.

I'm also always trying to find ways

to hide healthy things in my food for my kids.

So I'm doing a strawberry red-wine barbecue sauce.

Strawberries are for the kids, something healthy,

and the red wine's for me.

- Barbecue will change your life. - Yeah.

My name is Kareem El-Ghayesh. I am 36 years old.

I'm from Austin, Texas, and they call me the Egyptian Cowboy.

I moved to Austin, Texas, from Cairo, Egypt.

I was here, in Austin, Texas, to see my friend.

As soon as we landed, he took me, and we went to get barbecue.

I took my first bite of brisket, and my life has never been the same.

So I decided I'm gonna move to Austin.

I mean, it's a move across the world for barbecue.

I'm making my favorite country-style dish in Egypt.

So this is basically gonna be slow-cooked, um, oxtails.

I think a lot of folks here are cooking tomahawks.

It doesn't represent me as much, so I'm gonna stick to my roots.

Today, I'm making oxtail with caramelized onion,

baked rice, bone marrow and garlic bread,

and anchovy chimichurri.

I opened the food truck in October 2022.

I offer Egyptian barbecue in my food truck.

And since the opening,

it just feels like I'm hanging on to the side of a rocket ship.

The rise of the business has been extremely fast.

So these little oxtails right here are gonna go inside my rice dish.

I'm Shaticka. I'm from Nashville, Tennessee.

I'm 46 years old,

and I'm the bougiest barbecuer you've ever met.

I am bougie in all aspects of my life.

But, baby, on that grill, you talking about extra bougie.

I want the best ingredients.

I want the best cuts of meat. I want the best wood.

That's how you gonna have some bougie food up on that smoker.

She bad and bougie. Right, Ticka?