PERRIS, TEXAS, CUMBRIA

You can’t take Texas out of the Texan, and when pitmaster Robin Perris moved to the north-west of England, she brought her love of barbecue with her to start a family business. RUPERT BATES heads to Pappy’s in the Lake District

Take the train from London Euston and you’re just three hours away from the finest American barbecue, tucking into a full rack of baby back pork loin ribs or an oak-smoked brisket bun. Welcome to Kendal, Cumbria, unofficially twinned with Taylor, Texas.

Okay, so the legendary Texan smoke trail has a slightly different flavour and feel to the Lake District, but this is transatlantic love forged over fire, via the ski slopes of Colorado.

Robin Perris, founder of Pappy’s Texas BBQ in Kendal, is a third generation pitmaster from Taylor, near Austin. Many cities will lay claim to the home of BBQ,

but Austin sits at the smoking pantheon. Pitmaster Robin Perris moving from Texas to Cumbria in north-west England, is a transfer on a par with pass master Lionel Messi swapping Barcelona for Carlisle United. I confess I haven’t tasted them all, but the best beef brisket plate outside Texas might just be 5,000 miles from the Lone Star State.

Pappy’s is named in tribute to Robin’s late father, Tim Hurta, who, like her grandfather, Benjamin, who worked in meat markets and abattoirs as a teenager, was a renowned pitmaster and BBQ competitor. How they both must be doffing their celestial Stetsons to Robin’s achievements.

When we meet off the train there is still snow on the Cumbrian fells, but Robin feels right at home, having moved to England in the 1990s. She met her English husband Michael Perris skiing in Colorado, where they later got married. They eventually spied, appropriately enough, an old smokehouse, smoking ham and bacon, in limestone-hued Kendal, the ‘auld grey’ gateway town to the Lake District and Michael, a builder by trade, got to work, refurbishing the 19th-century buildings and fabricating the couple’s first trailer smoker, before creating the belching monster, the pit breathing as the fire expands, with three racks and a crane, that sits at the heart of Pappy’s, lovingly and expertly tended by Robin and the pit crew. Eat in, take out, or order to anywhere, the iconic Kendal mint cake will have to watch its back, for oak-smoked low ‘n’ slow BBQ is now the culinary talk of the town.

You can take the Texan out of Texas, but Robin was determined to pay homage to Pappy and keep the family BBQ tradition smoking. Back in Taylor she’d learnt all about BBQ at the feet of her father and on the back of his mobile smoker.

The Hurta family was a familiar and popular sight feeding fans at rodeo events, where Robin would compete, and her parents were great friends of Bobby Mueller from the iconic Louie Mueller Barbecue, that ‘cathedral of smoke’ in Taylor.

You couldn’t script a more authentic, heartening Texan back story as we talk in the Smokehouse Bar and Grill, alongside Pappy’s Taco Bar serving Tex-Mex food and me wondering if it’s too early for a tequila.

“Is Texan barbecue the best in the world? Well, we’ll certainly tell you it’s the best!”

The next generation is already heavily invested, even if Michael and Robin’s three children, Annie, Lucy and Sam, joke that they are still scarred, or maybe charred, by the holiday that wasn’t when a family trip to Texas was actually all about barbecue research for the launch of Pappy’s.

Actually, far from burnt by the heat of their heritage, they have instead assumed a familial ease and ability around the pits, pulling their weight in pork, especially during lockdown when the smokehouse had to pivot to home delivery – all hands on deck at home, smoke forever in the air, clearly chiming with Robin’s childhood, getting up in the early hours to stoke the fires.

“Our kids have been a huge part in helping me bring my vision to life for Pappy’s. From helping their grandpa Pappy and dad Michael build the smoker at the smokehouse, to working our truck at festivals. They’ve been involved working on the pit crew, working front of house and even playing live music. It’s been a real family effort.”

Before the pandemic, Robin was touring northern food festivals and the foothills of rural Cumbria and beyond, serving 18-hour briskets and Texan hotlink sausages from Pappy’s travelling smoker – a converted oil bowser on a trailer. Now their food truck caters for weddings and events and Pappy’s will be cooking at the Flame & Food Festival in Preston, Lancashire in May.

She is thinking about giving BBQ magazine an exclusive, revealing three generations of tips and tricks to smoking the perfect, melt in the mouth, brisket – Robin Perris and the Chamber of Secrets.

It is typically generous of the sharing fire food community, but the largesse does not extend to divulging the secret family recipe behind Pappy’s Original Texas Barbeque Sauce – ‘made in Cumbria, born in Texas’. What I can tell you is it’s fresh and tangy with a kick of spice and delicious as a marinade.

Husband Michael, when he is not creating beautiful houses in the Cumbrian countryside through Britican Design & Build, is the ‘wood whisperer’ sourcing the best oak.

Eldest daughter Annie is looking at a career in law but is also a very talented indie/soul singer and songwriter; Lucy is studying architecture and Sam is an apprentice joiner and a passionate foodie. You suspect the business of both barbecue and building are in safe next-gen hands.

“For great BBQ, you need a lot of dedication and a lot of crazy! There is plenty of trial and error along the way as you learn about your pit, for it is not going to tell you. Although, in the end, the meat speaks for itself.”

Pappy’s speaks for generations of Texan pitmasters, now breathing fire in the English Lake District. Go listen. Go eat.