Owner Man Hon Luk’s route to the pit reads like an A24 logline. Tipped off about Interstellar BBQ at 3am over a poker table in Austin, Texas, he made the pilgrimage, fell hard, and returned the following year, in 2022, to train under pitmaster John Bates at the now-Michelin-starred smokehouse. The concept of Hon’s that emerged — Texan technique with Chinese flavours — takes shape in a custom 500-gallon smoker sourced, like a divorced dad’s road bike, from eBay. At the hour when the CrossFit warriors stir, Luk is up at 5am, smoking low and slow. He crowdfunded a mighty £36,000 to secure the site, so I get the sense he has much skin in the game.
