Maroubra diner Smoky Sue’s barbeques almost a tonne of smoked meat each week, according to owner and pitmaster Owen Brown.

“We punch out all our barbeque on this,” he tells Broadsheet, motioning to an American-made Yoder YS1500 pellet smoker that’s wedged between a searing-hot flat grill and a two-metre tall hotbox in Sue’s hazy kitchen. “This thing works really hard. But I actually need a bigger smoker. Right now we can fit about 80 to 100 kilos of meat in there at a time.”

Slabs of grain-fed beef brisket, Riverina pork belly and hot links stuffed with spicy jalapenos and cheese are piled inside its black steel frame and smoked with Myron Mixon hickory pellets for hours until done (exact cooking times and temperatures are house secrets). They’re rested in the hotbox for a couple more hours and plated up with sides and on buns until sold out – which Brown says happens almost every night. Sometimes even an hour or two shy of closing time.

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“We can still do burgers after that. But it all depends on how we go with the barbeque, because we cook for the whole day. When the meat’s ready, we open.”

The ritual smoking of a whole day’s cook is common at the American smokehouses Brown is inspired by, such as Franklin Barbecue and The Salt Lick in Texas. But since opening the original Smoky Sue’s in Neutral Bay three years ago – he recently moved to Maroubra due to flow-on effects from Covid – he’s gained a following of his own, with many of his devotees hailing from the United States.

“We’ve even got a couple [of Americans] who work the pit for us,” says Brown. “A lot of them say this is the best brisket they’ve tried in Sydney because it reminds them the most of home.”

The Australian-born pitmaster is thrilled with that response, but the process behind Sue’s blackened hunks of Texas-style brisket is anything but traditional. First, he cooks the meat sous-vide (that is, vacuum-packed and slow-cooked in water) to break down its layers of connective tissue and achieve a meltingly tender cut – a French technique unusual in the American barbeque pantheon.

“Then we cook it hot and fast,” Brown says. “It’s a method a lot of barbeque joints are using now. Basically, it means the meat’s ready sooner and you get a better bark [crust] on it.”

Sue’s isn’t hogtied to any of barbeque’s state or region-specific nuances, either. Pulled pork is lashed with sticky barbeque sauce, Carolina-style; crunchy Southern fried buttermilk chicken evokes New Orleans; and Buffalo-style wings are doused in Frank’s Red Hot sauce. There’s even a Philly cheese-steak burger loaded with chopped brisket, green capsicum, onions and a molten cheese sauce (that canary-yellow stuff rarely seen this side of the Pacific).

If there’s a fire in your belly, you can put it out with tins of local beer (there’s Bondi Brewing Co, Young Henrys and Mountain Goat), a Long Island Iced Tea or a milkshake.

Brown says the idea to open a barbeque joint came after a few drams of Tasmanian whisky. “I was on a whisky trip with a few mates and we were talking about what we’d all do if we won the lotto,” he says. “I didn’t win the lotto. But I opened a barbeque joint anyway.”

Smoky Sue’s
Shop 50, Pacific Square, 737 Anzac Parade, Maroubra

Hours
Mon to Sun: 11am–9pm

smokysues.com.au