This stereotype is being radically revised by today's chefs, who are creating a new role for barbecue by adapting a global perspective and menuing barbecue items as starters. They're serving not only American favorites, but Jamaican jerk, satay with peanut sauce, Asian barbecue and Latin American sausages. And they're putting barbecue items on the menus year-round.
Many are using creative barbecue starters to whet appetites and encourage trial, while others see starters as a way to have some fun with traditions. “With starters, you can use an application that someone might not try as an entree,” observes Chris Ward, executive chef-partner of the Dallas-based Restaurant Life Group. And small-portion premieres of familiar classics such as baby-back ribs or pulled pork—or more unusual, flambeed chorizo—offer patrons a chance to sample more than one tasty treatment in a sitting.