The Best Pork Ribs In New York, According To Customers

Barbecue is a truly subjective topic, with so many different styles of it here in the States, and while some home cooks purport to make it best at home, it's a laborious and time-consuming process to which most aren't willing to commit — hence the rapid growth of barbecue restaurants in the past few years. Despite its roots in the South, there are restaurants all over the country, even up north, serving the saucy meats and hearty sides associated with this cuisine. New York City, with its hundreds of different ethnic cuisines, is no different, and there is one barbecue joint in particular that is knocking people's socks off with its pork spare ribs: Hometown Barb-B-Que, in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Spare ribs, which are derived from the bottom part of the pig's ribs, are fattier than their baby-back cousins (though they are closely related to St. Louis-cut ribs, which provide a tasty alternative to the latter), and they require a longer cooking time. Hometown must be doing something right when it prepares its version because they come highly recommended by many Google reviews (where it boasts more than 4,000 reviews, with a 4.5-star rating), with one reviewer in particular claiming they fell off the bone and were perfectly seasoned. "In fact[,] the flavor was so perfect that I ended up not even trying the barbecue sauce," they wrote. Another reivewer raved that it was the best barbecue that they'd ever had, and they "happily queued for an hour and [were] not disappointed" (per Google).

Another reviewer over on TripAdvisor gave a glowing description of Hometown's spare ribs, calling them "spectacular." They went on to write, "...the smoke is really the star here. Fall[-]off[-]the[-]bone tender and oh[-]so[-]fatty and delicious."

Hometown Bar-B-Que doesn't just do spare ribs well (so well that it made Food Republic's list of 15 best pork ribs in the U.S.); it's got a whole menu full of winners, starting with the spare-rib adjacent Korean Sticky Ribs, which get doused in a sweet and savory sauce, then topped with cashews and scallions. One Google reviewer noted that the flavor profile was so delicious that they could have easily made those their main meal, along with the honey cornbread. The cornbread is one of the most-mentioned items from Hometown's Google reviews, with one reviewer calling it the high point of their meal, and describing it as "succulent," with its flakes of salt and honey butter.

Now, the pastrami sandwich is also a big seller — so big that it can sell out — and it's only served on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Yelp, a reviewer called it both "memorable" and "elite," and claimed it's so flavorful that it lingers in your memory and leaves you wondering when you'll be able to enjoy it again. And no trip to a barbecue joint would be complete without a bit of brisket, which reviewers on Yelp overwhelmingly laud as delicious, one of the best tastes of the city.