The Room
Distant Relatives operates out of a smoker and a small kitchen at Meanwhile Brewing in St. Elmo — Damien Brockway, formerly of Maple & Ash and Walnut Hills, building the case that Texas barbecue's central-European pedigree is only one inheritance, and that the African, Caribbean and Southern Black foodways the diaspora carried into Texas have an equal claim to the form. The Michelin Guide named the operation one of its inaugural Texas-edition recommended restaurants. The Texas Monthly barbecue ranking placed Brockway in the top fifty Texas pitmasters in his first year of service.
The setting is intentionally relaxed — a brewery picnic-table set-up, a serve-yourself counter, paper trays, no reservations — but the cooking is the most ambitious in the brewery-barbecue category in America. The room is open Wednesday through Sunday, doors at 11am, and the line forms by 10:30 on a Saturday. Brisket sells out by one; the sausage and smoked lamb run later but not by much.
The Food
Brockway's menu changes weekly. The constants: smoked lamb shoulder rubbed with West African selim and tamarind, slow-smoked overnight at post-oak, sliced thin onto kuli-kuli flatbread. Jerk-spiced beef rib, two-pound presentation, with a Scotch-bonnet-and-tamarind glaze. Peanut-stew sausage, an in-house grind that draws on Senegalese mafe tradition. The collards, the red rice, the cornbread — every side reads as a distinct branch of the same diasporic tree.
The brewery side handles the drink — Meanwhile's beer programme is one of the best in Austin, the brewery's lager is the natural pairing, and the cocktail bar runs a serious frozen-Daiquiri programme. The room scales with the line. Bring patience; the patience is rewarded.
Best Occasion Fit
Team Dinner: Distant Relatives runs the most-considered Saturday team-dinner in St. Elmo — by-the-pound ordering scales naturally to a group of ten to twenty, the brewery patio handles long tables, and Meanwhile's beer programme handles the drink without negotiation. Arrive at 11:30 to beat the line; the room hits its rhythm by noon.
Solo Dining: The picnic-table set-up means the solo diner can sit shoulder-to-shoulder with regulars and have the conversation that Austin's barbecue lines have always made possible. Order half a pound of the lamb, a sausage, a pint of Meanwhile lager, and stay until the line clears.
Birthday: Birthdays at Distant Relatives are casual, picnic-style, lamb-shoulder-led affairs that the brewery handles with the rare warmth of a venue that does not pretend to be more than it is. The cake situation is BYO-friendly. The signed brisket-paper menu is the lasting memento.