Southern Living magazine folks love their barbecue, and they really love Tropical Smokehouse BBQ in West Palm Beach. In a list published Aug. 22 and titled "The South's best new BBQ joints of 2024," Southern Living name checks in its intro Tropical Smokehouse, a spot that opened in 2021, but "wasn't on our radar for the last list."
As the writers point out, "rules are meant to be broken."
Maybe it didn't make a previous iteration of Southern Living's best "new joints," but in 2023, it was on Southern Living's list of the nation's 50 best — and the only one in Florida. Also that year, the magazine hailed the Smokehouse as “the best locally owned restaurant in Florida,” and in the same month named the restaurant on its 2023 “South’s Best Barbecue Joint in Every State” roundup.
It's not surprising to see the joint fare so well.
Tropical Smokehouse's reach has grown in just the past year
Locals have had Tropical Smokehouse on their go-to lists regularly since it opened, so much so that chef and co-owner Rick Mace has opened other outlets to meet demand. Tropical BBQ Market opened last summer downtown near Clematis Street and as students geared up this month to roll into Palm Beach Atlantic University just south of downtown, they were greeted with an outpost on campus .
The restaurant also has hosted two annual summer "Smoke & Sunset" cookouts, bringing multiple restaurants together to serve up barbecue for the neighborhood.
They host a winter version as well called "Smoke & Sunshine." The last event in January was an all-star cooking collaboration between chef Rick and 10 of the finest barbecue chefs in the world.
BBQ with a point-of-view
Southern Living's barbecue editor Robert F. Moss took a shine to the 'Caribbean spin' that Tropical puts on staples like slow-smoked brisket and chicken. "Pulled pork is laced with tangy mojo sauce. Empanadas brim with brisket and cheese inside their crisp brown shells. The best preparations apply barbecue smoke to fresh fish, producing Spicy Wahoo Dip, barbecued salmon, and mahi-mahi that’s soft and flaky beneath a mahogany jacket of smoke," he writes.
Mace left his executive chef position at Café Boulud Palm Beach and partnered with former Boulud general manager Jason Lakow to realize the Tropical Smokehouse concept.
“Having a sense of place is definitely a critical component,” Lakow told former Post restaurant critic Liz Balmaseda in 2023. “We’re always trying to serve two ideologies, as Rick says. One is making our customers happy. Two is satisfying a desire to be creating and having that sense of individualism.”
With a ranking of 15, Tropical Smokehouse is joined on Southern Living's 22 best new BBQ joints by only one other Florida destination: La Veridica BBQ in Hialeah, which clocked in at No. 19.
South Carolina is home to seven spots on the list, making it the best represented of the Southern states. Texas had five, and North Carolina four. Both Charleston, South Carolina and Raleigh, North Carolina had more than one BBQ on the list.
Tropical Smokehouse, West Palm Beach
Where : 3815 S. Dixie Hwy, West Palm Beach
More information: 561-323-2573, EatTropical.com
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Beloved West Palm Beach barbecue spot earns high praise in Southern Living magazine
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