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Start a Top 5 for BBQEditor’s picks
Press picks, until locals rank their own Top 5s. Sourced from the local food press. As seen in CTbites and New Haven Independent. Updated August 2026.
Bear's Smokehouse Barbecue · Fair Haven
Bear's brought its Kansas City-style barbecue to New Haven at The Stack, the barbecue hall, brewery, and beer garden that Jamie and Cheryl McDonald opened with Jason Sobocinski of Caseus and Ordinary. CTbites covered the 2018 debut and its cafeteria-style line of brisket, burnt ends, pulled pork, ribs, and sausage smoked over the KC method McDonald grew up on. Order the brisket or burnt ends with the sweet KC sauce, and eat in the beer garden when it is open.
Streets Boathouse · East Haven
Steve Streeter runs a genuine smokehouse that the New Haven Independent profiled when it opened on the Quinnipiac riverfront, known for something almost no one else does: smoked lobster, whose porous meat drinks up the smoke, now sold as a smoked lobster roll. The pits also turn out ribs and pulled pork. Since that profile the operation has moved to Brown Road in East Haven. Go for the smoked lobster roll and add a side of ribs.