Hurtado Barbecue
The Big Red barbacoa tostada at Hurtado is smoked beef cheeks braised in the Waco-born soft drink, on beef-tallow refried beans under salsa verde, cotija and raw onion.2
Why go
Brandon Hurtado opened in Arlington in 2020 and calls the place a Tex-Mex-inspired Central Texas barbecue restaurant.
13 A pair of thousand-gallon reverse-flow smokers came out of Arnis Robbins's welding shop, and Robbins runs Evie Mae's Pit Barbeque in Wolfforth.3 The beef is from 44 Farms and the sausage is stuffed with smoked poblano and queso fundido.7 D Magazine's judged panel has the room ninth in North Texas, Texas Monthly had it on the 2021 Top 50 the year after it opened and made it an honorable mention in 2025.910 Brian Reinhart, looking back over a decade of reviewing this city, names Hurtado as downtown Dallas's barbecue.8
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Big Red barbacoa tostada. Vaughn calls it the restaurant's mascot dish.3
- Order: the Texas Twinkie, which the Dallas Morning News describes as
brisket and pimento cheese, inside a bacon-wrapped jalapeño.
4 - Order: the house sausage and the smoked elote, which is what Fort Worth Magazine says people queue for.6
- Order: the El Jefe platter if there are several of you. Six meats, including the brisket, the glazed pork ribs and the turkey.2
- Ask for the quail, which Fort Worth Magazine described as marinated in garlic butter.7
- Finish on the Mexican bread pudding if the rotating dessert is that one. It comes garnished with pork belly burnt ends.2
What locals & experts say
- Daniel Vaughn, Texas Monthly, 2025, on his own repeat order:
I'm continually drawn back for the bacon-wrapped jalapeños, the house-made sausages, and specialties such as the Big Red barbacoa tostada.
1 - Brandon Hurtado, asked in 2020 whether he had thought about closing:
No,
he said.We have to survive. We don't have another choice.
3 - Malcolm Mayhew, Fort Worth Magazine, on the Fort Worth room:
try the Mexican cornbread, a collision of chopped prime brisket, street corn, cilantro, onions, and cheddar cheese baked into a large cornbread muffin that's topped with garlic butter and honey.
5 - Brandon Hurtado, on why he opened in Fort Worth:
Fort Worth is where it's happening right now,
andthere's a lot of room for more barbecue.
6
Good to know
- This is the original room. There are others, including Little Elm, the Near Southside in Fort Worth and one inside Globe Life Field, and the rankings were earned at this address.61
- The Fort Worth room took over Derek Allan's Texas Barbecue's space on 8th Avenue.6
- Brandon Hurtado is from Irving and went to UT Arlington.7
Verdict
should-visit — Central Texas method with Tex-Mex seasoning worked all the way through it, off thousand-gallon reverse-flow smokers built by the man who runs Evie Mae's. Order the Big Red barbacoa tostada and the poblano-and-queso-fundido sausage, and add a Texas Twinkie for the table.