Chuck Charnichart | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1997or1998(age 27–28) [1] Brownsville, Texas |
| Culinary career | |
| Cooking style | Barbecue |
Current restaurant(s) | |
Chuck Charnichart is an American restaurateur and pitmaster.
Charnichart's parents, Bethoven and Francisca Charnichart, emigrated from San Luis Potosí, Mexico, to Brownsville, Texas in 1997. [1] Her father was a restaurant cook on South Padre Island. [1] [2] Charnichart was their first child born in the US. [2] [3] She has three siblings. [2] The family lived in a trailer park. [2] She worked at a Taco Bell. [2]
Charnichart attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied marketing. [4] [2] She first tasted Central Texas-style smoked brisket while in Austin. [5] [6]
While in college Charnichart worked front of house at Franklin Barbecue. [1] While studying abroad in Norway she worked in an Oslo smokeless barbecue restaurant. [2] When she returned from Norway, she worked at Fort Worth's Goldee's Barbecue, which in 2021 was named the state's best barbecue restaurant by Texas Monthly ; owner and pitmaster Jonny White became a mentor. [1] [2] [5] When White temporarily closed Goldee's while on vacation, he offered her the opportunity to use the space for a concept of her own, and she created a pop-up version of her vision for Barbs B Q. [2]
Charnichart is the pitmaster of Barbs B Q in Lockhart, Texas, which she opened with partners in 2023. [4] [1] [5]
In 2022, Texas Monthly 's taco editor Jose Ralat wrote that Barbs B Q's version of green spaghetti, which Charnichart created based on her mother's recipe, "might be the single best dish I ate all year". [7] [8] The restaurant was named one of the twelve best new restaurants in the U.S. by Eater in 2023. [9] In 2023 Garden & Gun called her "arguably the top brisket cook working in Texas today". [2]
In 2024 Bon Appetit named Charnichart their 2024 "Chef of the Moment", saying she was "reshaping barbecue". [1] In 2024, Barbs B Q was named one of the best new restaurants of 2024 by Bon Appétit [10] one of the best restaurants in the country by The New York Times, [11] and was a semifinalist in the Best New Restaurant category of the James Beard Foundation Awards. [12]