Don’t miss Tyson Ho crossing heritage-breed North Carolina hogs with free pig tattoos at the opening of the Arrogant Swine in Bushwick tonight. The new barbecue joint on Morgan Street is celebrating their first day of business in style with performances by Reverend Vince Anderson and the Bushwick Burlesque Company.
Arrogant Swine will be NYC’s first Carolina-style whole hog barbecue restaurant. This may have something to do with the fact that whole hog barbecue involves several hours of smoking the meat over wood logs, 24-hour attention and constant nightmares about potential fire hazards. The hogs will be sourced from Cheshire Farms in Goldsboro, North Carolina, a farm which conforms to Japanese transparency and testing standards (yes, they’re big in Japan) to ensure that the hogs are steroid and hormone-free.
As a native (and defensive) North Carolinian myself, I’m naturally suspicious of a barbecue joint opening up in a land where anything grilled can be passed off as barbecue and “whole hog barbecue” isn’t dismissed as a redundancy along the lines of “ATM Machine.” But Ho studied with NC barbecue darling Ed Mitchell, and that’s enough to get me in the door.
If barbecue is not your thing, the menu will eventually offer smoked vegan options. For now, Arrogant Swine is serving some very tempting side items including apple mustard slaw and sweet potato waffles, along with twenty beers on tap. I’ll see you at the opening, and if I’m not careful I’ll wake up with a rib tat on my ribs.
Looking for more places to eat barbecue in Brooklyn? Consult our map.
