Smoke & Barrel, DC #4

Smoke & Barrel is DC's spot for beer, BBQ, and bourbon. Doesn't sound vegan friendly, does it? Well, it is. What's funny about this place is that it used to be the super vegan-friendly Asylum biker bar and now that it has been transformed into a BBQ joint, the owners have continued to keep it vegan-friendly. Even funnier is that they serve tons of vegan options and tons of meat. It's a balance, I guess.

I didn't have the best experience the last time I was here so it's been about a year since my last visit, but I was willing to give it another try. As usual, it was busy, but the wait for a table was luckily only 15 minutes. Awesome. We got seated in the main dining room.

I don't know this girl, but she's pretty funny.

As soon as we looked at the menu, I realized the vegan offerings had been expanded. Double awesome! For appetizers, you have your choice of fried pickles, smoked vegan wings, salad, and chili. We went with the smoked vegan wings. I had ordered these wings in the past, but they have definitely changed their recipe. Now you can get them with dry with a dry rub, wet with BBQ sauce, or muddy with dry rub and BBQ sauce. Why not get it all? Holy crap, were these good?! They are more like drumsticks on a stick and smoked with a delicious sauce and spicy rub. Fantastic!

They also have an impressive cocktail and bourbon list, but I had a Negroni just for fun.

For entrees, there are now lots of options like the vegan spare ribs, stuffed potato, classic BBQ sandwich with tofu, chipotle sandwich with tofu, and vegan fish cutlet sandwich.  I went back to my old staple and ordered the sweet potato and oat burger and it was as good as I remember. Super tasty and when loaded with one of their five sauces, it is even better! I love the jalapeno sauce especially! The coleslaw I got on the side was a little dry though and I was wishing I had ordered a different side.

My friend got the Vegan Chicken Cutlet Sandwich and said it was really good. His sweet potato fries were good as well.

For dessert, we ordered the sweet potato donuts. They came in a paper bag, much like beignets do. My friend thought this was an indication that they wanted us to take it to go! Ha. No, that's just how they are served. Unfortunately, they were pretty burnt so they weren't great. But, a sweet potato donut in cinnamon is probably pretty good. We'll try them again next time.

All in all, this was a much better experience than last time. I will say that we ran out of water and were waiting for it for a bit so service was not stellar. But, the food was really good. If you haven't been here yet, definitely give it a shot. You could even just go to one of the bars and get wings and drinks -- sounds like a great first date to me!

Previous reviews
July 8, 2014
March 4, 2014
January 11, 2012

Smoke and Barrel
2471 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 319-9353