Texas barbecue has drawn many cultural collaborations from around the world over the past few years. Joints have paired their smoked meats with Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Egyptian, and Japanese cuisines. At Parish Barbecue, in Austin, owner and pitmaster Holden Fulco is looking just across the eastern border, to his home state of Louisiana, for menu inspiration at his new food truck. He’s parked outside craft brewery Batch and has been serving on a regular schedule since March.
When Fulco was attending Louisiana Tech, in northern Louisiana, his parents hoped he would stick with his prelaw path. He switched majors several times, even dabbling in sportswriting, but eventually got a business degree. Instead of seeking internships after college, he went to Houston to work at Pinkerton’s Barbecue. “Sometimes life moves you in a different direction,” he said. Next, Fulco relocated to Austin and worked for Franklin Barbecue for six months. “The thing I took most from that experience is how much I didn’t know,” he said. “I was green.”
In 2020, three weeks before the COVID-19 shutdowns, Fulco began a stint at InterStellar BBQ, where he gained valuable experience toward his goal of opening his own joint. “This is what I’m supposed to do,” Fulco said of his current venture, and InterStellar’s owner, John Bates, supported him in his entrepreneurial efforts. Fulco remained part of the InterStellar staff even as he tested out his concept with pop-ups.
It was actually at InterStellar that Fulco met his current hosts. One of Batch’s owners picked up a Thanksgiving turkey from the barbecue joint back in 2023. The brewery had an empty food truck on its grounds after a taco vendor had moved on, and the owner asked Fulco if he knew of a barbecue operation that might want to move in. The first Parish Barbecue pop-up happened five months later.
“Texas barbecue with Louisiana roots” is how Fulco describes his menu. The Texas barbecue part means you’ll get wobbly slices of fatty brisket with plenty of salt and pepper, but Fulco chooses hickory rather than the far more popular post oak because he admires its flavor from the barbecue he grew up eating around Shreveport. The big pork spareribs are tender, salty, and sweet—the glaze is made with Steen’s cane syrup, out of Abbeville, Louisiana.
Smoked beef sausages are a mainstay, though the seasonings go beyond the traditional salt, pepper, and garlic. When I visited, the special was a tabasco hot link, which incorporated chunks of tabasco peppers, made famous by the hot sauce brand of the same name. Fulco said Bill Dumas, known as the Sausage Sensei, has been an inspiration when it comes to creative sausages like the smoked chicken–and–andouille gumbo sausage he recently served. He also promises a spicy pork chaurice sausage, a variation on chorizo popular in Louisiana, as a special in the near future.
Smoked boudin is no longer an oddity in Texas barbecue, and Fulco broadens the genre. A smoked lengua boudin was on offer last month. I enjoyed a perfectly executed link of smoked brisket étouffée boudin that combined the trinity of celery, onion, and bell pepper with finely chopped brisket and rice. It was moist without being soupy. My favorite bite of the meal was when I squeezed a bit of the boudin out onto a fried roll and topped it with Fulco’s mustard barbecue sauce, which is made with a combination of yellow, Dijon, and Creole mustards.
The sharpness of Creole mustard can be found throughout the menu. It’s in the tart vinegar slaw (no mayo in this one), and, Fulco warns, “if you don’t like horseradish, you won’t like this slaw.” It plays well with the thick-sliced salty ham on a sandwich. “Where I’m from in Louisiana, pretty much every barbecue joint serves ham,” Fulco said. For his version, he cures pork shoulders and smokes them slow. “If you cook it right, you can cut it with a butter knife,” he said, and that’s one reason you won’t get thinly sliced ham. I loved its heft, the hickory smoke, and the well-balanced salinity.
Smoked and pulled duck is tossed in a citrusy sauce and topped with slaw and fried cracklins (which lose some of their crunch) for another popular sandwich. Fulco likes serving vegetarian barbecue as well, so look for the smoked vegetable muffuletta, made with blackened cauliflower and olive salad. Baking the bread for the sandwich in the food truck’s little oven isn’t easy, so Fulco didn’t have it available when I visited. A cold succotash salad was also a late scratch from the menu. He said the challenge of operating out of a food truck is that the prep cooking all has to be planned out and done for the week in one big batch. He does that in the kitchen of Micklethwait Barbecue, but miscalculations happen. “If we get to Sunday and we’ve used more of it than expected, then it’s hard to make more,” Fulco said.
The sides that were available were stunners. Fulco boils red potatoes in crawfish seasoning for an extra kick of spice, and he uses Creole mustard in the potato salad dressing. “Growing up in my family, there was always olives in our potato salad,” he said, so he includes them here too for an acidic tang. On the richer side, go for the cornbread dressing studded with crawfish tails and green onion. The mac and cheese topped with crushed Zapp’s chips (Voodoo flavor) stays creamy because Fulco uses evaporated milk and sodium citrate for the cheese sauce. The roux, he said, continues to thicken the sauce as it sits in the warmer.
“We have a pretty heavy menu,” Fulco admitted, so he overcompensates by offering a variety of pickled vegetables. Besides the house pickles and pickled onions, expect to find pickled okra, jalapeños, and—my favorite—green tomatoes.
If the pickles lighten things up, the bread is on the other end of the spectrum. I mentioned the fried rolls earlier. They’re called pistolette rolls ($2.50 each) on the menu. Batch, which serves a wide array of kolaches, bakes the rolls using its kolache dough, and then Fulco deep-fries them just before serving. (In exchange, he provides chopped brisket for Batch’s brisket klobasniky.) If he were to add powdered sugar, you might mistake the rolls for inflated beignets, but instead, they come with a side of Tabasco honey butter. Now that’s decadence.
“I’m going to do what I know and what I’m passionate about,” Fulco said when I asked what to expect from Parish Barbecue in the future. The smoked meats are already impressive, and the Louisiana flavor makes this joint an even more intriguing addition to East Austin’s many barbecue options.
Parish Barbecue
3220 Manor Road, Austin
Phone: 512-596-1913
Hours: Thursday 11–4, Friday–Saturday 11–8, Sunday 11–5
Pitmaster: Holden Fulco
Method: Hickory in an offset smoker
Year opened: 2025
