AAA brisket is the star at this West Island smokehouse — served as the centrepiece to your barbecue spread, as a sandwich filling, or atop a mac and cheese. Also available: St. Louis-style ribs, jalapeño and cheddar cornbread, chicken wings, and lots more.

Rubs’ menu runs the gamut: Kool-Aid fried pickles, jalapeño poppers, blooming onions, nachos, poutine, sandwiches, and burgers. Barbecue purists will want to concentrate on Rubs’ signatures, including its brisket and St. Louis ribs.

Expect heaping servings of meats cooked low and slow for hours, with your choice of accompanying sauce: Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, Memphis, “crazy spicy,” or BBQ honey. It’s also got a fine selection of reasonably priced — and generously stacked — sandwiches of the smoked sausage, portobello, po’ boy, and club variety.

This small but mighty player on Montreal's smokehouse scene got its start in an Hochelaga-Maisonneuve alleyway and is now (thankfully) a recurring stall at the Atwater Market. Expect St-Louis-style ribs, succulent brisket served by the half pound, and a mac and cheese for the books.

This Plateau fixture is celebrated for its mouthwatering fried chicken and various Tex-Mex staples, including refried black bean burritos and hard-shell ground beef tacos. It also offers up some barbecue faves. There’s a mustardy smoked brisket sandwich, some Dr. Pepper-slathered pork ribs, and pulled pork given the Tex-Mex treatment: It’s joined with pimento cheese and salsa roja in a bun.

Griffintown's Le Boucan serves up racks of ribs, pulled pork, chicken, and sides like nachos, poutine, and smoked tomato soup — plus some vegetarian-friendly barbecue options, like hickory-smoked tofu and pulled jackfruit.

Dylan Kier, one of the city’s most dedicated pitmasters, runs this award-winning decade-old Verdun operation, which many consider Montreal’s finest in the barbecue department. Its approach is Memphis-style, with meats dry-rubbed and slow-cooked, but its reinterpretation of poutine, featuring brisket burnt ends, is another reason to visit.

John Lattuca is first and foremosta Texas brisket man, but his namesake barbecue restaurant in Old Montreal explores other meats and styles and does so just as well. How could he not? Lattucahas travelled 40,000 miles around the US, eating and judging barbecue for several competitions.