Saltlick Barbecue - Austin-Bergstrom Airport

Saltlick Barbecue

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport

3600 Presidential Blvd, Austin, TX 78719

Saltlick Barbecue is known far and wide as one of the best barbecue spots anywhere and is located on the southern outskirts of Austin, TX.  I personally consider it Mecca for the religious center of barbecue.  But that's just one man's opinion.  But this is not Driftwood. It's an airport where there are more challenges for providing quality smoked meats.  

Airports have very specific restrictions on the kind of cooking that restaurants inside the terminal can do.  Mostly, it does not allow wood smoking...or gas...or other methods of heating that would provide a security risk.  So what do you do and what can you provide.   

The Saltlick provides a pleasant atmosphere and a limited menu but still there are options...

There is Brisket (Chopped or Sliced), Sausage, Pulled Pork, Turkey, Chicken and Ribs. Unfortunately the Ribs are not featured as an option on the 2 or 3 meat platters.  Sides are limited as well to Potato Salad, Cole Slaw and Beans. However all of those sides appear on a platter along with a drink.

Notice the additional take home items of a Whole Brisket in a hot/cold travel pack.

I got the 2 meat platter with Brisket (sliced) and Sausage.  It came with Beans, their German Potato Salad, Cole Slaw and their signature loaf bread (one slice).  The Brisket and Sausage was pre-sauced.

First the sausage.  This was spot on. Just as I remembered it from Driftwood.  It's firm and fresh with flavor without too much spice.  The brisket was a bit tough and lacking in the smokiness that I would expect. (More about that later as I talk about the Take Home Whole Brisket).

The beans were exactly as expected. Good Texas Pinto Beans.  Not baked/BBQ/canned-like beans.  The potato salad was not as "German-intense" as I was expecting.  The flavors seemed to be a bit watered down from what they serve in Driftwood.  I have to admit that I didn't even try the cole slaw. Was just not interested.

However the experience of using that bread to sop up the sauce with a bit or two of meat went down just as it should...the Saltlick way.

Whole Brisket

So I grabbed a take home whole brisket and flew home with it.  The hot/cold pack was very convenient and easy to transport on the plane.  The brisket itself was vacuum packed with sauce and spices.  The instructions were to cook at 225 degrees for 90 minutes. So that's mostly just heating it up.  Now I found it to be very consistent with the brisket experience at the airport restaurant.  However that was still too tough and not really flavorful enough.  I keep thinking that something just wasn't right.  Now without doing a plate to plate comparison of the airport version with the Driftwood version I can't be sure but the result I came to is this.

Saltlick airport brisket isn't barbecue.  It's a good roast brisket but it just isn't barbecue.  Now before you start lighting the touches and waving the pitchforks around and screaming blasphemy, I feel the same way.  How can I say this about a restaurant with the name and history of Saltlick? Let's take the evidence.  They can't smoke at the airport, so they probably bring it in that morning.  But there is no crust, there is no rub, there is no point (the brisket is only the flat) so it's all be pre-cut and pre-processed.  Now that being said, it's probably the best "airport barbecue" that there is, but it's just not the same as eating freshly smoke brisket at an actual barbecue restaurant.  So would I eat there again? Absolutely, I would try the ribs next as I recommend that you do on your way thru the hippest airport in Texas.

I just recommend tempering your expectations based upon the Saltlick name.