About a year ago, Marc Fadel sat across from me as I burst his barbecue bubble. The then-eighteen-year-old begged for an honest assessment of the smoked meats from his three-week-old Habibi Barbecue trailer. I began with some light, constructive criticism. But then he asked me to be more blunt.

“If you keep at this for a year, you’ll look back at photos and be embarrassed of the barbecue you’re serving now,” I told him. His mouth said he understood, though his face looked crestfallen. I didn’t mean any disrespect. Any experienced pitmaster trying to improve with every cook will know what I meant, and the good news is that Fadel did keep at it. A year later, he has matured into one heck of a pitmaster.

“I can’t believe what I was serving,” Fadel said last week, standing over that same pic

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