Rub BBQ

Lunch: Wednesday - Sunday, noon - 4 p.m.
Dinner: Open daily, 4 p.m. - 11 p.m.

RUB BBQ is a rare find of slow cooking in a fast-paced town. RUB BBQ has had much success in New York City, where Wall Street professionals, celebrities and casual diners all enjoy RUB’s slow-cooked meats and sides. Now, Las Vegas can also enjoy some of RUB’s extraordinary, award-winning barbecue. 

RUB has an urban-rust feel and earth-toned color palette. There aren’t a lot of decorations, pictures, murals or anything extraneous on the walls. At first glance, you could dismiss RUB as just another Las Vegas restaurant. But that’s where you would be wrong - horribly wrong.

The simple décor is just the way RUB owners, Executive Chef Paul Kirk and Andrew Fischel like it - with the concentration clearly on the food. RUB Las Vegas opened in December 2007 and is becoming a tourist and local favorite. In an ever so image-conscious town, part of that success has to come from having “the best butts in town”—well, sort of.     

At RUB BBQ you’ll quite simply get the best BBQ in the world. Maybe because RUB is the brainchild of Chef Kirk, aka The Kansas City Baron of Barbecue. The name is fitting for a man that has virtually won every award possible for barbecue, over 450 of them including an induction into The Barbecue Hall of Fame in 1990. Chef Kirk is also the author of five cook books about barbecue, including "Paul Kirk’s Championship Barbecue" and "Paul Kirk’s Championship Barbecue Sauces." Chef Kirk became so renowned for his barbecue expertise, that he became a teacher, holding classes around the world including Canada, Ireland and South Korea. 

At RUB Las Vegas, your meal is cooked for hours in one of seven, industrial-grade, wood-burning, 200-degree ovens (a truly amazing sight). The table is adorned with four different kinds of sauce so you can have your barbecue just the way you like it. But surprisingly enough, the secret to barbecue is not just in the sauce or the cooking. “The key to good barbecue is knowing when to take it off,” says Fischel. If this is the case, Skip Steele, pitmaster of RUB Las Vegas, has impeccable timing.  

If you are a barbecue virgin, then try the Baron. With enough for a table of folks, the Baron has beef, chicken, pork, ham, pastrami, turkey, sausage and ribs. It’s a crash course in barbecue, Kansas City Baron-style. 

There are also other dishes like BBQ Nachos, BBQ salads, BBQ sandwiches and BBQ meats served individually. Are you seeing the pattern here? Wash it all down with a glass of Southern-style sweet tea and you have a low-down, dirty-good meal. 

Not to worry, for the non-meat-eater in the crowd, choose from a creamy mac and cheese, fried catfish, grilled cheese, pulled portobello sandwich or BBQ salmon. However, RUB BBQ has been known to convert the toughest of vegetarians. 

One such (former) vegetarian saw the light when she tried the burnt ends, crispy yet tender fatty parts of brisket smoked for 18 hours. Burnt ends are little juicy chunks of meaty goodness. They were truly the highlight of the meal - the best of the best.

Desserts include a sinfully gooey chocolate pudding, rich bread pudding with a meringue topping, and a butter cake that is to die for.  

The barbecue is flavor-packed and messy, the sides like the onion strings, pit baked beans and cucumber and tomato salad are perfect complements to the meat, and the atmosphere is casual enough to put your elbows on the table and have it out with your slab of ribs. For that reason alone, RUB could go up against any restaurant, and with Kirk’s track record, probably win.   

RUB serves up truly braggadocious barbecue. But with that boasting, comes the stuff to back it up. “We want to do it right every time,” says Kirk. Doing things right includes prepping the barbecue selections fresh daily. That means if the restaurant runs out of a certain item, it’s an excuse to go back the next day!   

The mixture of Kirk’s high standards and fresh ingredients makes RUB what it is: a great barbecue restaurant that brings a little soul to Las Vegas.

-- By Nikki Neu