Duke's Barbecue

Duke’s is stark. On purpose. Everything about this place is designed to help you concentrate on the hickory-smoked barbecued pork. It is served in big chunks at a cafeteria line that also includes rice, hash (a stewlike mixture made from pig innards), a choice of red sauce that is four-alarm hot or yellow mustard sauce that is sweet and tangy (unique to central South Carolina), and pickles. Dish out as much as you want in your partitioned plate, grab a plastic fork, and find a place at one of the long picnic tables in the cavernous eating hall.

It is glorious pork with a complex flavor that is just faintly smoky, each piece a tender mouthful. Somehow, it is especially right to savor it in the peace of this dining room, where the only music is the sound of more pork being hacked into hunks back in the kitchen.