Brandon Hurtado is a leading authority on Tex-Mex barbecue. As chef/owner of Hurtado Barbecue in Arlington, Texas, he also is one of its most admired hands-on practitioners and passionate ambassadors. His cooking includes recipes with deep roots in the barbecue traditions of Texas and Mexico alongside his own innovative creations that take those traditions in brand-new directions.
Brandon and his wife, Hannah, started serving barbecue in 2018 on the Dallas-Fort Worth pop-up scene, mainly at breweries and microbreweries. They graduated to a food truck in 2019, in downtown Arlington. The food truck was immensely popular, which led in early 2020 to the opening of a brick-and-mortar restaurant, Hurtado Barbecue, in a 120-year-old former railroad station, also in downtown Arlington. Since then the restaurant has been named by Southern Living magazine to its roster of “Top 50 BBQ Joints” across the entire South and by Texas Monthly to its list of “Top 50 Texas BBQ Joints,” among many other media accolades.
