This is New York so no matter how much you wish to imbue your barbeque joint with hickory-smoked authenticity, you can’t garnish the entrance with a screen door or tack an oilskin tarp over the bare doorframe. So I like the weird compromise of Wildwood BBQ: they replaced the glass panels of a standard revolving door with wood.
Arriving to Wildwood after work for dinner, two workers stood scrutinizing this door with concern; it appeared to be revolving improperly. I learned only after my meal, when my sever Yvonne, wearing a black T-shirt with the Wildwood logo and the phrase “Get Sauced!”, perkily informed me I’d been her very first customer, that the restaurant just opened today, which may have explained the kinks in the door. It also explained the dozen servers clustered in the rear of the place with ready-for-the-rush alertness and apprehensiveness, as if they needed giant catcher's mitts to field the expected barrage of customers. That’s right: another BBQ restaurant has opened in New York City.
This one at least has tasty enough fare. My half-rack of baby back pork ribs was sweet, smoky and unexpectedly spicy. The sauce was supposed to have a raspberry element, which was part of the reason I’d ordered it, but I couldn’t detect any such flavor. Drinks were good: a nearly too-sweet julep made with proper pebbled ice and fresh mint sprigs, followed by a straight Buffalo Trace from the comprehensive bourbon and whiskey menu. I automatically deducted points from the mac-and-cheese for being made with miniature shells instead of proper elbow macaroni, but it tasted rich and cheesy.
The architecture features a lot of heavy, bolted wooden beams and distressed steel at odd angles, lending the large, tall dining room a lodge-like vibe. The whole thing with the severs’ custom T-shirts (others read “Wingman” and “I [heart] BBQ”) and a big-city marketing agency’s idea of a “BBQ joint soundtrack” (“Bad to the Bone” and worse) reeked of theme-restaurant cheesiness. And unfortunately the location on Park Avenue near Union Square means the place attracts one of my most despised elements, especially when dinner-for-one means I eat at the bar: the white-collar After-Work Get-Together. Tonight they were all loosened ties and Banana Republic skirts, jostling me as they talked loudly about their day in the office.
Wildwood BBQ
- 225 Park Avenue South (between East 18th and East 19th Streets)
- (212) 533-2500
- Meal 24 of 52: a julep ($11), a Buffalo Trace bourbon ($8), 1/2 rack babyback ribs ($15.50) and a side of mac-and-cheese ($6.95).