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Hill Country

Critics' Pick

30 W. 26th St., New York, NY 10010
nr. Broadway See Map | Subway Directions Hopstop Popup
212-255-4544 Send to Phone

Critics' Rating: Price Range: $$$$
Reader Rating:
4.8 out of 10

11 Reviews | Write a Review
Cuisine: BBQ

Photo by Jeremy Liebman for New York Magazine

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Hours

Mon-Wed, noon-10pm; Thu-Sat, noon-11pm; Sun, 11am-10pm

Nearby Subway Stops

N, R, W at 28th St.; 6 at 28th St.; F, V at 23rd St.

Prices

$15-$30

Payment Methods

American Express, MasterCard, Visa

Special Features

Dine at the Bar
Good for Groups
Hot Spot
Live Music
Lunch
Notable Chef
Take-Out

Alcohol

Full Bar

Reservations

Accepted/Not Necessary

Make a Reservation with opentable.com

Profile

When it comes to new barbecue joints (as with new sushi parlors and French brasseries), it helps to have a mania for replication. Witness Hill Country, the Texas-themed honky-tonk joint on a lonely stretch of 26th Street, in Chelsea. According to its proprietors, the boxy, two-story space is designed to evoke the old “barbecue markets” of central Texas. There’s a giant silver star suspended by the bar and the brick walls are covered with photos of battered pickups and empty country roads. The rough-hewn tables are set with rolls of paper towels and cutlery thrown in a pickle jar, and the Texas sausages and chickens and steaming hunks of brisket are measured out on scales in front of brick holding pits, then dispensed, cafeteria style, by gentlemen bearing big silver tongs. This utilitarian, slightly bewildering setup is modeled, to an obsessive degree, after Kreuz Market, a legendary barbecue joint in Lockhart, Texas. The barbecue world is famously pork-centric, but in Texas, the specialty is beef. And the specialty at Kreuz Market is brisket, a notoriously temperamental dish that takes hours to cook and is prone to toughness. At Hill Country the specialty is brisket, too, smoked over cords of post oak trucked up from Lockhart. The grizzled pit master at Kreuz Market, Rick Schmidt, traveled to Hill Country himself and seasoned the big, state-of-the-art smokers with a half-burnt log from his own smokers in Texas. And as at Kreuz Market, the brisket is smoked unadorned, without sauces, and served on brown butcher paper, which grows increasingly wet and greasy as your meal progresses. — Adam Platt

Note

In the restaurant’s basement, there’s a live stage where honky-tonk bands play till the wee hours, if that’s your sort of thing.

Reservations
Accepted for parties of eight or more.

Ideal Meal

“Moist” brisket, pork ribs, beef shoulder, smoked sausage, shoepeg corn pudding, chocolate brownies.

Reader Ratings

4.8

waaaaay too pricey

chanex from 10011 | Posted on 8/15/08

Overall Reader Rating: 4 (Not Recommended)


Food:	7
Service:	4

Décor:	8

Value:	2

I'm from TX and love my barbecue, especially cafeteria style, but knowing that if you allow yourself to grab everything you want you'll be paying $40 for dinner takes all of the fun out of it...decent brisket and...Read More

The Bellevue of barbeque joints

molly_caitlin from 10012 | Posted on 7/18/08

Overall Reader Rating: 2 (Not Recommended)


Food:	5
Service:	1

Décor:	4

Value:	3

Some coworkers and I went to Hill Country recently for a colleagueÂ’s birthday. Unimpressive. Our waitress seemed to be on some heavy sedatives-she was barely alive. She had two tables, however managed to forget our drink orders, then bring...Read More