Meat

I came hear with a friend for a birthday dinner couple weeks ago. It was an appropriate choice for a special occasion.
The have a menu limited to smoked meats, fried chicken and sausage. The sides, and everything else is built around the smoked meat.
By the time we got there, 7pm on a Sunday night they had already run out of 2 menu items.
The waiter was polite and the service was friendly.
The décor is pretty much what you would expect, modern chic minimalist.

Meh. Incredibly overrated. Most of the meat you will order will probably be bland. I guess that’s where their bbq sauces come in handy.
We tried the brisket, pulled pork, fried chicken and garlic fries. Fried chicken was ok. Everything else was bland and the fries are soggy.
Don’t see the hype in this place. Neat concept, poorly executed.

I personally think this place is bit overrated. Or maybe this restaurant is just not for me.
We (party of two) ordered half order of brisket, full rack of ribs, and fried chicken with sides of large mac and cheese, pork and beans, and coleslaw.
If you are into slow cooked meat, this is the place for you. I found all the meat bit too dry for me to enjoy and could taste the basic flavor of the meat. I could enjoy a bit by dunking the meats into one of theirs sauces.
If you like your steak to be cooked rare or less, this is not the place for you. If you like to have your meat when it is flavored by sauces, this is the place for you.
Overall, I thought food was too dry and over priced for my experience.

Try the sample platter, feeds 2 – 3 people and will give you an idea what you like on their menu. Personal favourites were the brisket, sausage and garlic fries. Comparable to southern BBQ I’ve had in the States.
A nice edition would be a better non-​alcoholic drink menu, they have a stock of bottled speciality sodas, many of which are often out of stock and no diet soda options on menu.

If you are having a craving for meat then this is the place to be! We came here around 8pm on Saturday and it was busy buzzing with conversation and laughter. They don’t take reservations so you may have to wait a bit for a table.
Our server’s name was Jan and she was excellent. Since we both had never been to Meat, she explained to us what they are about and gave us some wonderful recommendations for both food and drink. She explained to us that Meat is a BBQ smokehouse with homemade sauces, yummy sides, wine, beer, and bourbon. They smoke and prepare over 700 lbs of meat in a day and they still manage to run out! Jan recommended that we share a few half orders of the meat and have a few small sides to go with it. We decided on the the brisket, chicken and sausage link. For sides we ordered the coleslaw and the garlic fries.
Even though the meat is smoked, it doesn’t overtake all of the other delicious flavours in the meat. All of the meat was tasty, tender and moist. The coleslaw is probably the best I have had in a while. It wasn’t over saturated with dressing, had perfect crunch and was finished with a bit of onion that pulled in the sweet and savory flavours together. It went very nicely with the meat. The garlic fries were delicious! So delicious that you do not need any ketchup or sauces to go with them. Sauces are available to you to choose from at your table. There was mustard, cherry, spicy or bourbon sauce. We tried them all and enjoyed the mustard and bourbon sauce the most. To drink we each wanted bourbon so we had an Old Fashioned. It was potent but good!
Overall our experience here was fantastic and when I am having a meat craving, I will be sure to come back. Thanks Jan for taking good care of us!

I’ve been to Meat a few times and I gotta say, I find it is just OK. It’s trendy, has a great location, and the staff here are super cool. As for the food… I’ve never been particularly wow-​ed. I love pulled pork and I find that the pulled pork here is a bit dry for my liking. They do have a variety of sauces to use– which makes up for it a bit, but over-​all, the quality doesn’t hit the 4 or even 5 star mark.
Sure, there aren’t many places in Edmonton that offer this kind of family-​style bbq dining, so it offers a unique dining experience. But in my opinion, it is a bit overrated. I’ve never had a bad experience here, but I only ever find myself at Meat when other people wanted to go due to it’s location on Whyte– or someone hasn’t tried it before. There isn’t anything particularly special about the food (other than the way it is served) that makes me want to keep coming back.

I had been meaning to try this place for a while and finally went a week ago.
It is a really fun place, big tables for groups and some smaller tables as well.
The food is served in a group– platter style so you can mix and match your meats and sides.
We started with chicken wings which were smoked and crispy– delicious!
I had the smoked chicken with the side salad.
The chicken was really tender and I loved the choices of bbq sauce they had. Especially the cherry!
I was really impressed with the side salad-​more than just lettuce! It had beets, goat cheese and pecans.
One really delicious side was the garlic fries. Very garlicky– bring your mints! But they were some of the best fries I ever tasted!
I can see why this place is always busy!

Husband and I went here for dinner on Saturday, Jan 2, 2016. Our server, Steph was very friendly, bubbly and made the evening quite enjoyable.
We started with a new menu item, the smoked chicken wings with salt n pepper were very smoky flavored without being over bearing and the salt n pepper was very light yet the flavor was there.
Hubby had the beef brisket with garlic fries. He ate that all the while commenting on how good it was. I had fried chicken leg and thigh w/​coleslaw. The chicken was very moist and the fried coating was crispy yet not greasy. I had two root beers and my husband had a beer a shot of scotch and a Kentucky Mule. $ 85.05 with tax.
Definitely be going back here again, and again, and again.

MEAT is… OK.
I’ve been twice, and I guess it’s not really my taste, because I find the food quite average. The drinks are great, I could spend all day here sipping bourbon (they have a fantastic selection and make a wicked Old Fashioned), but to be honest I don’t care much for the food.
My first visit was with a group, so we got the platter with a number of sides. The only thing I really liked was the brisket, which was tender and crumbly and delicious. Other things I found the smoke flavour to be overwhelming, particularly for the pulled pork. The fried chicken I barely got to try because for some reason there’s only one piece of fried chicken per platter (for 3 – 4 people, what are we supposed to fight to the death or something?), and we got a scanty rib piece. Not impressed.
The BBQ sauces I found very disappointing, they’re all very sweet, even the «spicy». Maybe that’s to cut the smoke flavour, but to me it’s just all sweet smoke flavour. Yuck.
The sides were really underwhelming. The potato salad was really plain and boring, and almost dry. No one out of 8+ people in our group ate it. I’m not that big of a fan of garlic so the garlic fries were out, very strong garlic, kind of creamy. Coleslaw was average. Veggie beans very dense and needing more flavouring. The mac & cheese was a hit, very creamy.
We came back a second time to try the sandwiches. I tried the pulled pork sandwich, but unfortunately my sandwich was ridiculously drowned with mayonnaise. I switched it with my bf who loves mayo but he couldn’t finish it. It was a sloppy mess and again the pulled pork while tender did not have a great flavour in my opinion, I’d rather have a saucier spicier version.
I’d only come back for a drink here, I think the food is disappointing. Great venue and the service has been very good, and the price is reasonable for what you get when you compare to other share style meat places like Rostizado ($ 50 a platter which feeds 3 people, versus $ 50+ per person to start). Long live the Old Fashioned!

This place was amazing. I was totally expecting a small hole in the wall BBQ place but WOW that was not what I got. Instead, I found a casual but clean, great food and friendly service restaurant that I will definitely be returning to. Meat offers a variety of slow cooked meats and sides. Plus, they have a special. Today’s special was Button Bones — 1 lb for only $ 15 and totally worth it. We also got a ½ lb of the Beef Brisket and three small sides — garlic fries; bakes beans and the mac & cheese. Not only was the meat cooked to perfection but the sides were AMAZING. I would go back just for the sides!
The restaurant offers 4 sauces for you to dip your meat in — Cherry, Bourbon, Spicy and Mustard. The Cherry was sweet but not enough cherry flavour. The spicy was good but had too much cumin flavour. The mustard was just plain old mustard but the bourbon was my personal favourite. Definitely a must to try!
The other thing about this place is that it was a little tricky to find. It’s right on 104 north of 82 but the sign is tiny. Worth the annoyance and once you know where it is you will be back!

Meat:
My husband said the ribs were spicy and really smoky. He really enjoyed them, but if you don’t like spicy food I would not recommend them. The chicken, also according to my husband, was really decadent — almost like dessert. I had the beef brisket which was just as though a pound of meat came down from the heavens and bestowed itself upon our table. It was seasoned perfectly, just incredible.
Sides:
Oh my god those GARLIC FRIES! The best fries I’ve had in a restaurant in a long time. Pickles are $ 1 each and they were quite big and definitely delicious. We also tried the coleslaw, which was pretty mild in comparison to the other seasoning. Pretty standard slaw but nonetheless good.
Dessert:
Next time … as we were too full to try any.
We sat outside which was great, as the restaurant was packed and incredibly noisy inside. In general we got a lot of food for the cost and everything was fantastic. The service was good, our waitress was friendly and our food arrived at a reasonable time.

Finally got a chance to try this place! i’m a fan of Next Act and was so excited to hear they were opening another place right next door! The place is really easy to find and the I love the tile everywhere and open atmosphere. It was a 10 min wait for a table so we decided to sit at the bar which was fairly empty at the time. Our bartender was wonderful and attentive. She gave us the low down when we told her we had never been before and offered suggestions off the menu.
The menu is a cool style. You can choose to do a make your own platter/​dinner style or go with the sandwiches. My boyfriend ordered the pulled chicken sandwich that came with garlic fries. It was a large portion and he loved every bite. I made my own platter with the maple chicken, sausage, coleslaw and potato salad. The pricing came out to the same as I would pay for the same as an entrée at most other restaurants. The chicken was very good with a hint of spice to it. The sausage was good but nothing different about it. The coleslaw and potato salad were also very delicious. For dessert I ordered the banana parfait. It was amazing! I only wish they had one more layer of real bananas near the bottom then it would have been perfect.
The drink selection here is great! The have craft beers on tap with some rotating handles and a large whiskey selection. The sodas are classic cane sugar based and are wonderful!
The ambiance of the place is a little louder and lively so if you’re looking for a quiet intimate sit down you won’t find that here. But given our mood for the evening this place was fun and had our spirits up the entire time. Great place if you’re out on whyte for a fun night and in the party mood.

I was really excited to check out Meat because of all the reviews. Unfortunately I have to say I was disappointed with the meat.
I went here in a group of 4 and got the meat platter. It was big enough for the four of us and there was still lots leftover! The sides were really good (Mac n cheese) but I found the meat itself to be really dry.
Try it out for yourself but I know there are other places with way better BBQ/​meat!

Meat meat meat! This restaurant opened up a little bit over a year now, and shares the same owners as The Next Act, which is just next door. It offers a large variety of authentic BBQ, along with some tasty sides and their their homemade sauces. A couple of weeks ago, they closed for a couple of days because they were filming for You Gotta Eat Here! So be sure to check out the episode when it comes out!
In the last couple of weeks, I had the opportunity to go here twice. Once to try their brunch, and then again a few days later to try their dinner. I went here when they first opened up a year ago, and it has only gotten better! I’ve been to a few BBQ places in Edmonton, Sloppy Hoggs Roed Hus BBQ and TW’s BBQ Smoke House, so it’s always nice to have more options! There are some parking meters out front, and, as most places of Whyte ave, free parking can be a bit scarce. There’s tons of imparks around though, if you don’t mind paying a few bucks! They don’t take reservations here, so depending on the time you go, there can be a little bit of a wait! Luckily, both times I went this week, it wasn’t too busy so we got in right away. Also, I apologize in advance, but I’m not sure why I decided to halve all of my photos.
On the occasion I went for brunch, both me and Jamie decided to get the Beef Brisket Benny with Hashbrowns. It comes with Brisket, carmelized onions, and a buttermilk biscuit. Eggs Benedict is always my go-​to brunch item, but the next time I come here, I really want to try the buttermilk fried chicken and pancakes, because I saw some people getting that and it looked so good!
When I went for dinner, we wanted to try a little bit of everything, so we got some pulled pork, brisket, apple glazed smoked chicken, and ribs. For sides, we decided to go with their garlic fries, and some potato salad…

I had been hearing about Meat for awhile so finally a few friends and I decided to head down to Whyte ave on a Friday night and check out what Meat had to offer.
It was about 8pm on a Friday and they don’t take reservations, so I was a little worried about getting in, but it was no problem we were sat immediately (thank god too because I was starving!)
When we first sat down the waitress came up to us and explained that they like to serve their food «family style», which essentually means you order a little bit of everything you want and share it among the people in your party. I love doing this however we decided among ourselves hat we just all wanted the ribs so we got those and each picked our own side.
Our food came out fairly quickly which was a huge relief to me — and among receiving our meals we all dug in!
I personally ordered the ribs, the garlic fries (which I had heard amazing things about, and the mac and cheese because I couldn’t resist.
The ribs were great — but they kind of had a smoky taste to them, as if they were cooked over a campsite. I believe this is the taste meat is going for as they smoke all their meats for hours prior to serving them, but I personally am not a huge fan of smoked things so they were just ok to me. The main highlight however and what made the ribs interesting is that they have an assortment for 3 homemade BBQ sauces — Bourbon, Cherry, and Spicy. YUM! This sauces were amazing and it was fun t try them all out and get a different flavor of meat with each bite.
As for the sides — delicious but oh my god they were NOT kidding when they sid the fries were garlic fries. WOWZA. So garlicy! I also ordered a small and got a TON of fries which was nice but I couldn’t finish them all.
The Mac & cheese was suuuuuuper rich and cheesy, and I thought it also tasted fairly garlicy but I can’t be 100% positive on that because my tast buds were literally covered in the taste of garlic from the fries.
Oh! And If you are a pickle lover like myself — Order a pickle. $ 1 for the biggest pickle you have ever seen in your life. No joke its the the size of a cucumber. Yum!

When I think of brunch it’s usually some version of eggs benedict accompanied by a mountain of fruit. Meat isn’t usually the first thing to come to mind, so when Meat deviated from their weeknight dinner service to offer weekend brunch I was curious to see what was on the menu.
Opened just over a year ago, Meat delights those in Old Strathcona with the smell and taste of tender smoked meat. The large windows bring in lots of natural light to the open concept dining room, and the communal dining tables give this restaurant a casual, laid back feel. Bourbon, cherry and spicy barbeque sauce and mustard line each table, waiting eagerly to accompany your meal.
The brunch menu is straightforward, offering seven breakfast dishes and three sandwiches. My boyfriend started his day with the Beef Brisket Benny with Hashbrowns ($ 15), where the soft poached eggs and brisket sat on caramelized onions and a fluffy buttermilk biscuit. The housemade hollandaise added flavour to the dish and the crispy hashbrown was a great accompaniment, but it did feel like the dish could have used a bit more brisket.
For myself I went with the Buttermilk Fried Chicken & Flapjacks ($ 16), and it was probably the best decision I made that day. Biting through the crispy skin revealed piping hot, juicy chicken that was perfectly seasoned. The three cornmeal flapjacks with butter and rosemary maple syrup made for the perfect sweet and salty combination and the portion size held me over ’til dinner. Unfortunately, one of my pancakes wasn’t fully cooked through, but another quickly arrived to the table in its place. If you’re going to Meat for brunch, this dish would definitely be my recommendation!
Edmonton doesn’t have as much of a brunch culture as other cities (hello, Calgary!), but it’s great to see another restaurant start to offer casual weekend dining. Old Strathcona is a great area to spend a warm weekend afternoon, so why not kick it off with brunch at Meat? And not to worry if you’re a vegetarian, as they have veggie friendly options too. Not too many people seem to know about brunch yet, as it wasn’t overly busy during our visit, so you can avoid long lineups and kickstart your weekend with some smoked goodness!

How have I not reviewed this place before?
Are you SURE, Unilocal?I love Meat, it’s my favorite restaurant on Whyte, and my favorite BBQ restaurant in the city.
Quick things to know. This is the hands down best BBQ place in Edmonton.
They still lose to Big T’s BBQ in Calgary if we are to pick a best bbq place in WESTERN CANADA.
When a restaurant is this good, you really don’t have a review where you point out the «highlights» so I’ll point out the things to REALLY REALLY REALLY GET
The Smoked Chicken. None Better. I usually get a whole chicken so that I’m GUARANTEED left overs. The things I’ve made with the leftovers would qualify as a gourmet meal out.
Mac & Cheese. Simple. Delicious.
Bourbon. This is a great place to grab one a boiler maker, or taste their ample selection of bourbons.
LOW LIGHTS
If you really want to pick at this 5 star restaurant, I would say.
Too Many Hipsters.
Go to Meat. You won’t regret it.

First, I want to starty by saying that I so SO so SO wanted to love meat! My husband and I had actually stopped by twice before learning that they aren’t open for lunch.
I planned a surprise birthday dinner here for my hubby with several of his guy friends. I’m a transplanted American to Canada and I REALLY really REALLY L-​O-​V-​E my BBQ and figured this would be the perfect man meal!
The server, Robbie, was hilarious but a bit busy and not always easy to flag down.
We tried SOOOO many freaking things it was crazy. We ordered the off menu meat sampler, macaroni and cheese, garlic fries, extra fried chicken, 2 racks of ribs and each had a few drinks.
I was disappointed in the two items that come as the highest recommended :-(
The brisket was really dry on our visit — I mean, like not a drop of moisture or hint of goodness from slow cooked fat. I realize that this could be due to the cut of meat and completely out of their hands but none the less, none of us wanted to eat it.
The andouille sausage was also quite dry and didn’t knock it out of the park for us the way many of the other reviewers experieced it.
The macaroni and cheese was okay but nothing to write home about. The coleslaw was hardly touched by our group. But the garlic fries were ridiculously garlicy addicting finger licking oh. em. gee. good! It’s kinda like garlic with a side of fries :-)
Our favourite by far were the smoked ribs and I don’t mind the price but the ribs were had were super small. Not sure if that’s the norm but think about half the size of a Tony Roma’s rib rack. I could polish off 2 full racks for a meal myself.
The real surprise was how amazingly delicious the chicken was! If I were to come back, I’d probably order a rack of ribs and chicken and call it a day!
I uploaded lots of pics so take a peek :-)
Our tab worked out to about $ 70 a person plus tip — so it was a fairly pricey meal with some serious disappointments in the meat department.
I would definitely give MEAT another try if friends wanted to go together but as far as seeking them out on my own again, probably not. For the $ 160 I paid, I’d rather go give another restaurant a try.

Celiac fare is definitely plentiful and available. Just not the cream corn. I haz a sad. :-(But we *are* here to eat MEAT.
On a Sunday night, we arrived around suppertime expecting a wait. The hostess suggested 20 – 25 minutes, and she wasn’t wrong. We got a seat quickly to wait, and we were at our table in no time. If a guest hadn’t been hogging a stool with her scarf in the bar, we would have sat there and relaxed pre-​carnivore episode.
Our waitress rocked. Seriously went into the kitchen not once, but THREE times to make sure my food allergies were addressed. Kudos — the staff here really seems to care about the client. Bonus, our server wasn’t the only one to clear our plates etc. and fill the water. It’s a great team effort to feed you there!
Seating is… not terribly intimate, but we ARE here to savagely eat beautiful, delicious BBQ & smoked meat, so that shouldn’t be a problem. It might even be a benefit keeping the spray and splashing across the table to a minimum! We found that we weren’t crowded — that’s a definite plus. Room on either side and behind so you could get up. Although there are some tables for two along the south wall, in the main dining area are 6 long 8-​seater tables on the one side, and I’m not sure how many could seat on the window-​side tables — but likely the same. I didn’t look to see how many tables/​seats there were behind me towards the bar or along the windows as you entered. You are seated across from eachother in amongst other diners.