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New Guy Cooking: Local hotel chef to take on the pros at the city's big downtown rib feast
Journal Photo by Jennifer Rotenizer
Timothy Grandinetti, the executive chef at the Marriott, will be serving up barbecued pork ribs, brisket and boneless chicken breast.
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Published: June 13, 2008
It's hard to remember this when you live in North Carolina, but there are other kinds of barbecue out there.
Tim Grandinetti is new to town, new to North Carolina, and new to the state's barbecue identity crisis, the chopped-pork line of demarcation that squiggles through the center of the state separating Western-style and its vinegary, Eastern cousin.
But Grandinetti is not new to ribs.
Winston-Salem has had a rib fest for four years but never a hometown contender. This weekend, Grandinetti will be the local talent.
The cooking at most rib fests is limited to the professionals, people who are used to smoking and grilling thousands of pounds of meat for thousands of people. The ribbers pulling into Winston-Salem this year have made a life and a living of rib contests under such names as "Sgt. Oink's," "Pigfoot," and from Texas, "Joey's Texas Thunder." They have large, loudly painted signs that stretch into hot, bright summer skies. They have bottled sauces and rubs. They are brands. They cook to sell.
And then there will be Grandinetti's crew, the home team, "Dr. Brownstone's BBQ." The name comes from an after-hours hot-dog stand that he opened for the staff of a resort when he was in college and was doing an externship on Cape Cod. It was inspired by the Guns N' Roses song, "Mr. Brownstone," appropriately the fifth track on the 1987 album Appetite for Destruction.
Burly and boisterous, Grandinetti is by day an executive chef, overseeing the kitchens in the Twin City Quarter hotel complex and at the Benton Convention Center, including WS Prime, the resident restaurant of the Marriott in downtown Winston-Salem.
It's the serious business of banquets, buffets and conventions. But he bubbles with unconventional ideas. A carving station for pancakes. Beer-can chicken on WS Prime's menu. To him, food is nourishment and politics and business, but, above all, it is fun.
Grandinetti grew up in upstate New York and he went to college there. But he moved to St. Louis in 2005 to become the executive chef of a 900-room hotel. Last year, he moved to Winston-Salem to do the same thing at another Marriott hotel,
Somewhere along the way, Grandinetti got interested in barbecue. He revived the name Dr. Brownstone and used it to compete in about six Kansas City Barbecue Society competitions. These barbecue contests are held around the country among amateur pit masters whose ambitions have outgrown their backyards.
It was that experience -- plus Grandinetti's professional restaurant connections and background -- that convinced Allen McDavid, the rib fest's promoter, that the hotel chef might be able to stand up to the pros in this year's festival.
"He contacted me," McDavid said. "When I talked to him and found out he was used to dealing with large numbers of people.… He wasn't just some guy who thought he could cook ribs."
He said that about 30,000 people attended last year's rib fest. McDavid, who used to promote a rib fest in Greensboro, had tried to use local ribbers before but found that they couldn't keep up with the crowds, and it doesn't help that North Carolina's barbecue tradition isn't ribs.
Grandinetti is eager for feedback from the professionals, these crews that haul around the country from one rib fest to the next, a never-ending road of sticky, sweet sauce, an interstate littered with bones and stained paper napkins.
One morning earlier this week, Grandinetti pulled a few racks of ribs out of the smoker in WS Prime's kitchen.
Everything in this kitchen is large-scale, industrial and super-size -- a long room of stainless steel, carts and trays, pots and pans and dozens of bowls. On one counter, two trays of red-skinned potatoes waited for tomorrow's breakfast. On the other, hotel staffers crossed the kitchen, the traffic of hospitality, wheeling by carts heavy with bottled water and ice, orange juice and empty plates. Another worked on trays of wine and nuts for VIP guests.
But in one corner, Grandinetti had barbecue on his brain. Six raw beef briskets for this weekend waited to be trimmed. Sixteen hundred pounds of Iowa pork was on its way, and 200 pounds of boneless chicken breasts sat in a cooler. Grandinetti will have chicken and, of course, ribs at his stand, but he has a pair of chef friends coming in to serve their smoked cheddar bratwurst and Texas-style brisket. He may not be in this to make his livelihood, but a man has his pride.
"I would be thrilled if people loved our brisket, but the Texas gentleman is going to be there," Grandinetti said, referring to one of the ribbers. "It's a brotherhood," he added, slapping one of the briskets across the side for punctuation.
Then, he warmed up a rack on a grill and slipped a knife between their bones.
He bit into one and moaned. "It's tender. It's juicy," he declared through the caramel-colored pork, fat and sauce. "Some people think it's good if it's falling off the bone, but no, then it's lost all it's juice.
"I'll be flattered if people like it," Grandinetti added, looking down with love at a stack of ribs that a sous chef was wrapping in plastic. "We are in it to become better ribbers."
■ Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 727-7302 or at lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com.
RibFest
• WHEN: 11 a.m. to midnight today through Saturday
• WHERE: 200 N. Cherry St.
• COST: $6 at the gate. Food and drinks are extra.
• WEB SITE: www.twincityribfest.com.
All festival events are outside, but there are covered tents for eating.
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