The barbecue gods are cruel.
No one knows better the Sisyphean challenges of making good barbecue than Bruns. Twice a week for two summers, the Tru and Spiaggia vet and his wife Taylor trudged across the North Avenue Bridge to the beach, pushing wheelbarrows and dragging wagons full of produce from Green City Market to a small kiosk owned by the Park District, equidistant between Fullerton and North Avenues. They also brought their own oak wood and meat and a combination smoker-grill setup that they chained to the wall. The limitations of space and access encouraged creativity. Instead of adopting one of the more traditional barbecue models, Bruns took the opportunity to experiment with things like kimchi-cured pork belly banh mi, Italian beef brisket sandwiches, and pulled chicken with market corn and beans. “We were always struggling to have a good mix of different items and push people’s boundaries as to what they thought barbecue was.”
Apart from the beef, Bruns brings in whole pastured animals—pigs, chickens, and sometimes lamb, many from downstate’s Slagel Family Farm—and he’s shopping according to the season. For now he’s sticking with an unconventional porchetta: whole pork bellies split and rolled around housemade sausage, sliced in a thick slab and served, in my case, on a bed of creamy polenta, dressed with spring pea shoots, purple sauerkraut, and gently sweet apple butter.
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