This month, Teresa Gubbins reviews Tim Love’s newest restaurant, Woodshed Smokehouse.
Lulled by the scent of smoke, a circle of people huddles around a hunk of charred meat, agog. It’s a mighty beef shin, the bone jutting up amid blackened chunks of flesh, a carnivore’s feast heaped on a slab of wood. A maiden steps into the circle. Her name is Tiffany, and she wants to know if you need an extra napkin. At Woodshed Smokehouse, the new restaurant on the banks of the Trinity River in Fort Worth, celebrity chef Tim Love drags us back to our caveman days, invoking our primordial fascination with burning things. Everything is cooked via fire or smoke—no electricity, no stove-top braising—and the menu includes an “animal of the day.” It even goes so far as to identify menu items by the kind of wood used in their cooking: mesquite, hickory, oak, or pecan. Jump for goodness.