Soul & Smoke opens flagship with acclaimed barbecue and new fine dining dishes

Soul & Smoke, best known for its critically acclaimed American soul food and barbecue, has finally opened a long-awaited flagship, inspired by roots in the South Side and, perhaps more surprisingly, molecular gastronomy.

The reimagined restaurant celebrated its grand opening in Evanston on Sept. 1 after years of delays.

Chef D’Andre Carter and sommelier Heather Bublick began what was solely a catering company in 2020. The husband and wife still cater and now have four locations around Chicago, including a stand at Soldier Field. The flagship will be the first full-service restaurant of the Black- and woman-owned business.

The redesigned Soul & Smoke in Evanston will offer two menus with familiar favorites all day, and fine dining for dinner.

“We really want it to be a place where our current customers, who are coming in and getting a rib tip combo, can sit with someone having a full dinner with oysters and steak,” said Carter.

He grew up on the classic Chicago-style smoked rib tips and spicy hot link sausage combination, but makes his own variation with heritage Duroc pork.

“We really want to combine our backgrounds in fine dining with the barbecue and soul food that we’re currently making,” said Bublick, who’s also CEO.

I first met Bublick and Carter many years ago, before they married and had children, when they were working at the Michelin- starred restaurant Moto in Fulton Market under the innovative chef Homaro Cantu.“Soul & Smoke is pretty much my dream restaurant,” Carter said about the new flagship. “It’s modern barbecue, touching on some family recipes.”

So what took so long?

“We are in a century-old barn,” said Bublick. “We first moved into this building in 2016.”

They rented the former dairy barn turned school bus garage, then bought the building in February 2020. After COVID-19 closures the following month, and a pandemic pivot, the business unexpectedly boomed.

“We converted our old event space, and really thought we were going to have a much easier time,” she added. “We thought that we would be grandfathered in.”

It was already a licensed kitchen space, but then code changes kept coming, for the exhaust hood, fire sprinkler system and roof.

“Financials changed too, because things got more expensive,” Carter said. “We got caught up in the tariffs.”

“We refinanced the building to make all these changes happen the day the tariffs took effect,” Bublick said. “We still don’t have any investors, so it’s challenging doing it all on your own.”

They still make their bestselling brisket, but will challenge the idea of barbecue, most poignantly with an oxtail cigar that’s an homage to the late Cantu.

“He was my mentor,” said Carter. “Before Omar passed, he gave Heather and I the OK to do it.”

But the protege turned pitmaster wanted to put his own riff on the dish that looks like a smoldering cigar, originally a playful transformation of the Cuban sandwich.

“So we’ve got hickory smoked beef oxtail that we wrap in bread and cover in braised collard greens,” said the chef. “The fire is my original barbecue sauce, and we take black and white sesame seeds to turn that into the ash.”

Served in cut crystal vintage ashtrays, the result is a neoclassic Chicago-style dish reincarnated.

“I’m really excited about the grilled halibut collar served with curry sauce that’s my aunt’s recipe,” Carter said, crediting his mother‘s younger sister Genean Jeanty. “I want people to pick it up and drag it through the sauce to have that on-the-bone experience.”

He curated desserts with pastry consultant Casey Doody, made in-house by pastry cook Janice Espino.

They include a “sky-high” sweet potato pie with roasted sweet potato in a graham cracker crust topped by a mile-high torched meringue; a Ho Hos-inspired chocolate Swiss roll; and a peach cobbler.

A root beer float, though, made with the soft drink by Sprecher Brewery, was added by Carter for his late brother’s favorite soda pop.

“I’m really excited for the throwback cocktails,” said Bublick about the Long Island iced tea and a lychee martini. “And we really focus on a lot of local beers; we still have our Beer For The Soul with Sketchbook, but this is the first time we’re pouring it on draft.”

The beverage program also focuses on producers and businesses by women, as well as Black, Indigenous and people of color.

Nonalcoholic drinks feature iced teas, brewed with leaves from Rare Tea Cellar; a house-made lemonade; plus slushies in purple Wildcat lemonade and piña colada flavors.

The restaurant may be in Evanston, but the design references the city.

“When you first walk in, there’s chain-link fencing that’s in the entryway,” said Bublick. “It kind of feels like you’re walking down a Chicago gangway, and you can see the backyard barbecue already in progress.”

“The host stand looks like grandma’s armoire, but modern and funky,” she said. “And then you see the smokers.”

They bought the centerpiece pair of bright red, 10-foot-long, hickory and cherry wood-burning offset smokers, made by the legendary fabricators A.N. Bewley in Dallas.

“There are some seats along the kitchen counter,” she added. “We’re calling it the chef’s counter.”

Reservations will be available at the 175-seat restaurant.

“We also have a lot of art in the space telling the story of the building and our community,” said Bublick. “Evanston is known for having the nation’s first reparations program, and it’s in large part due to the redlining that happened in this neighborhood.”

Robinson Enterprises, one of the first and largest Black-owned transportation companies in the country, decided to sell the restaurateurs their building when the family patriarch died in 2019.

“The first thing you see is the Bear Champ mural that we brought inside with a Robinson bus on it,” said Bublick. “We really wanted to have a good mix of street art to fine art.”

The boxing gloved bear character by artist JC Rivera can be seen on street murals around the city.

Television screens will play Michael Jordan-era Bulls basketball games, and only the biggest finals games of any sport live. A DJ-curated setlist will play R&B during the day with more hip-hop into the night.

The new Soul & Smoke will have outdoor seating with a mural titled “Soul & Fire” by artist Bianca Pastel next to their community fridge.

“It’s inspired by the kids of this neighborhood,” said Bublick. “Three girls going down a Slip ‘N Slide.”

The couple wants to share their nostalgia and joy.

“On the way to building our dream restaurant, we just had to survive too,” said Carter. “And we have all these employees still left from the pandemic.”

They’re just two people who met while working at a restaurant in Chicago, he added.

“It’s just crazy special to us.”

1601 Payne St., Evanston; 847-859-2732; soulandsmoke.com/evanston