On August 16, 2016, Bon Appetit published critic Andrew Knowlton's review naming Buxton Hall Barbecue in Asheville, North Carolina, as number nine on the Hot 10 Best New Restaurants in America list for 2016. The deck line challenged a common cliché: people say barbecue never changes, and Knowlton argued they are wrong. This article rewrites that review in our own words for readers who want the highlights without opening the original piece.

Context for the Hot 10 list

Each year Bon Appetit editors pick the ten new restaurants they find most exciting nationwide. Landing at number nine meant Buxton Hall had already survived a long shortlist. For a barbecue joint, that usually requires more than good sauce: smoke consistency, sourcing, and whether the rest of the menu supports the pit define whether critics take you seriously.

Knowlton wrote during a broader barbecue boom in the United States. Legacy joints were getting fresh attention, while new smokehouses such as Buxton Hall were praised for honoring tradition while pushing the category forward. That framing helps explain why a small Asheville dining room could rank beside restaurants in much larger cities.

First impressions: smell before the door

Knowlton opened with scent. Even outside Buxton Hall, the air carried a faint smoky pork aroma that intensified inside the brick-walled dining room. Guests passed T-shirts for sale, including one labeled "Smoked While You Sleep" that he called a favorite. In the open kitchen, pitmaster Elliott Moss stood over a whole pig, picking and chopping smoked meat. The scene underlined that whole hog was the center of the operation, not a marketing phrase.

Local pork and eighteen hours on wood

The review's technical heart is sourcing and time. Buxton Hall used local pasture-raised pork rather than commodity meat, then smoked it for eighteen hours over oak, cherry, and hickory. Knowlton described the result as juicy, sweet, and melting on the tongue. He tied the technique to Moss learning whole-hog barbecue from his grandfather in Florence, South Carolina.

That detail matters for readers comparing national barbecue styles. The praise was not only for tenderness but for a clear link between family tradition and the restaurant's daily work on the pit.

Beyond the hog: chicken, mussels, and sides

Knowlton stressed that great cue is not only pork. A fried chicken sandwich, with chicken smoked before frying, was the best version of that trendy dish he had eaten all year. Mussels, unusual for a barbecue restaurant, came with smoked tomato sauce; he finished the sauce with buttermilk hushpuppies.

Sides received equal attention. Green beans caught drippings beneath the pigs. Collards simmered with swine bits and cider vinegar. Potatoes were smoked, mashed, and topped with hog gravy. Knowlton's through-line was simple: everything tasted of the pig. That coherence is what separated Buxton Hall from places that treat sides as filler.

Recipes Bon Appetit published with the story

The magazine linked seven Buxton Hall recipes, including hushpuppies, tartar sauce, grits aligot, smoky greens and beans, buttermilk fried chicken, white barbecue sauce, and lemon meringue pie. Some of that work also appears in Book of Smoke on this site.

Sharing recipes extended the review beyond travelers who could visit Asheville in 2016. Home cooks could experiment with techniques even if they could not replicate a full commercial pit.

Why the review still matters after closure

Buxton Hall closed permanently in November 2023, but the 2016 Hot 10 entry explains why the name still appears in conversations about modern whole-hog barbecue in the South. It documents how critics saw the restaurant at its peak: ambitious without abandoning Carolina roots.

Limits of the source

Knowlton's piece does not include prices, seat counts, or sales data. This summary does not add visitor statistics or quotes beyond his published review. All sensory and menu details above come from the August 16, 2016 story.

Conclusion

Bon Appetit ranked Buxton Hall ninth on its 2016 Hot 10 because of pasture-raised whole hog smoked eighteen hours, Moss's pit skill, and a full menu where sides and outliers like mussels still pointed back to pork. The original review remains the authoritative English-language account of that moment.