Pitmaster Daniel Castillo and executive chef Nicholas Echaore are among the few practitioners forging a regional vernacular for barbecue in SoCal. At the most basic level I’m talking about people waiting in long lines for fanned slices of brisket, spare ribs and sausage links slow-cooked to their melting points, with sides of potato salad, beef-speckled beans and milky, crunchy slaw. But Castillo and Echaore approach their work with an open-ended question: In what context does smoked meat fit into dishes from all sorts of cultures? They answer by barbecuing Santa Maria tri-tip, an excellent filling for a taco built on a Sonoran flour tortilla made with tallow rendered from brisket trimmings. Brisket may take on flavors of teriyaki or pastrami seasonings; beef ribs steep in galbi marinade. They push barbecue into new possibilities. — B.A.

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