Luella’s

Flavor: Pan-Southern ‘cue and matching sides
Ambiance: Friendly counter service for folks on the go

Other than an unwavering commitment to coleslaw, America’s two great contributions to the lunching scene—the Northern delicatessen and the Southern barbecue joint—have very little in common.

Indeed, the two establishments are so fundamentally different that ticking off their characteristics sounds like a children’s primer on opposites. Delis are fast. ‘Cue joints are slow. Deli workers are brusque. ‘Cue joint staffers are friendly. ‘Cue joints serve pork. Most delis don’t.

So it’s all the more impressive that Jeff Miller and Scott Howell (the famed chef/owner of Nana’s in Durham) have managed to create a hybrid of the two genres in Luella’s, the latest addition to Asheville’s burgeoning barbecue scene. There’s no evidence that the two set out to become culinary uniters; rather, Luella’s shows them to be accidental bridge-builders, fusing an urban sensibility with a rural cooking tradition.

Howell is a Southerner by birth, so he’s presumably got the chops to churn out seminal barbecue. But he was raised here in Asheville—far from the state’s barbecue belt—where kids grow up without any inbred allegiance to a particular barbecue style. Apparently, it all tasted good to him. Howell first publicly displayed his smoked-meat polyamory while at the helm of Q-Shack in Durham, where he salted the menu with Texas-style brisket, saucy Memphis-style ribs and Carolina pork spiked with vinegar.

Howell has since sold the popular Q-Shack, but he’s brought its menu home to Luella’s, a counter-service barbecue eatery in South Asheville that boasts perhaps the best-looking logo in all of edible Buncombe County (if nothing else, go for the business card). The food is well north of decent, but Howell’s real achievement is peddling pork like it’s chopped liver. His operation is efficient and energetic, and every sandwich is accompanied by a new dill pickle.

Howell has said he opened Luella’s partly because Asheville has historically been bereft of notable ‘cue. Those Dark Ages finally ended in early 2006 with the opening of 12 Bones Smokehouse, whose introduction of ribs rubbed with chipotles and curry was judged by local foodies to be no less of an achievement than Brunelleschi’s mastery of perspective.

Luella’s doesn’t have a chance of unseating 12 Bones as Asheville’s best barbecue restaurant. But as more and more respectable barbecue joints emerge, there’s no shortage of niches to be filled, and Luella’s seems to have nailed the “best barbecue for a workday lunch” category.

Luella’s isn’t all business: The restaurant has a pair of beers on tap (although a frosty Orange Crush, available by the bottle, is the perfect accompaniment to most of the restaurant’s dishes), and features live music on weekends. Still, its food and service seem best suited for a time-pressed crowd.

The menu at Luella’s features the entire roster from Old McDonald’s Farm, with beef brisket, pulled chicken and turkey breast sold by the sandwich or plate. But no matter how many meats a Carolina-barbecue restaurant may add to its lineup, it will invariably be judged on its pork.

Luella’s chopped pork shoulder runs a mite too short on flavor and too long on dryness. The ribs are slightly better, although their tender meat clings a little too tightly to the bone. Both dishes are designed to be sauced by the diner, who has a choice between tomato- and vinegar-based sauces. Best to ask for both, since the quality of the sauces appears to vary wildly depending on who prepared it. On some days, the deep-red Pisgah sauce is a perfect balance of sweetness and tart, providing a nice counterbalance to most of the meats on offer. On other days, the proportions are noticeably off, so the glop more closely resembles the ketchup-mustard mix that most kids use as a hot-dog topping. The Scooter’s “Famous” vinegar sauce is nearly as fickle, with its taste profile running from punchy to pugnacious.

Sauces aren’t needed for the andouille sausage or the beef brisket, perhaps the best meats on Luella’s menu. The beef brisket sports a sauce of its own: The advertised green chiles give the sauce a nice kick, but an unbilled appearance by Worcestershire sauce pushes the dish toward pot-roast territory.

But it’s a mistake to waste time whining about the main dishes at Luella’s, since the real stars are the sides. The French fries and onion rings are acceptable—although upgrading to sweet potato fries only buys you 80 cents worth of regret, but at least one of your two allotted side-dish slots should be saved for the cheese grits.

Like the brisket sauce, the grits are flecked with green chiles. The addictive dish has a perfectly cheesed pudding-like texture, but steers well clear of the mush category. Its cousin on the steam table, a macaroni made with sharp hoop cheese that’s clearly an owners’ favorite, is nearly as good.

Other standout sides include the fried okra, wearing just the thinnest jacket of breading, and well-seasoned collards. Not all the sides are so successful: The coleslaw is nearly pickled by a hefty dose of vinegar. The baked beans are an odd departure from the usual ‘cue-joint interpretation of the dish; the multibean concoction tastes like something that would be cooked over a campfire after a long day of hiking. But the more traditional hush puppies, rich with sweet corn, are terrific.

Luella’s offers only one dessert: date pudding. Smeared with homemade whipped cream and packed into a small plastic tub, the pudding is one of the worst-looking desserts I’ve ever seen. It bears an uncanny resemblance to congealed sawdust. So it comes as a surprise that the pudding is not just good—it’s wonderful. No wonder it’s the only dessert on the menu: The pudding should delight anyone with a working sweet tooth.

Date pudding with candied pecans is a whimsical addition to a straight-up barbecue menu, but it makes sense at Luella’s. The restaurant is beholden to its customers, not tradition—an approach that well serves the hard-working denizens of Hendersonville Road.