An Asado Movement Is Emerging in Florida’s Barbecue Scene

When Americans talk barbecue, the conversation usually drifts toward the old guard — the smoked brisket temples of Texas, Carolina’s vinegar tang, the molasses-rich ribs of Kansas City, the whole-hog pits of Tennessee. The Barbecue Belt. But head south, past the Mason-Dixon Line and the Deep South, and you’ll find a new contender emerging with slow-burning confidence: Florida.

In the Sunshine State, where culinary influences stretch from Havana to Buenos Aires to São Paulo, a different kind of barbecue is taking root — one built on open fire, long afternoons, and the spirit of gathering. Welcome to the rise of Florida Asado, where pitmasters and chefs are turning to the Argentine tradition of cooking over wood-fired embers.

Chef Jeffrey Budnechky (Jeff Bud), a Miami native with Argentine and Brazilian roots, grew up around live-fire cooking. “It was just how we did everything — weekends, birthdays, no special occasion needed,” he says. “There was always grilled meat, always family.” But it wasn’t until the COVID-19 lockdowns brought his marketing career to a halt that he felt a pull to go back to the fire, forging Apocalypse BBQ.

“I was standing in the yard thinking, ‘This feels like the apocalypse — I just want to barbecue,’” Bud says. “I dropped a FedEx box and ran back inside to make an Instagram. That’s literally how Apocalypse BBQ started.” Five years later, the one-time pandemic side hustle is now a full-blown Miami barbecue sensation.

At Apocalypse, brisket gets croqueta’d, maduros are smoked and caramelized, and ribs come rubbed in cafecito and lacquered in housemade Oro Negro sauce — a molasses-dark glaze that’s all Cuban coffee and bold Miami attitude. Side dishes like sofrito-baked beans and mojo-mustard sauces add even more flavor to Bud’s mashup of Latin heritage and Southern smoke.

Further north in St. Augustine, Florida, Nick Carrera of Asado Life adopts a slower, smoke-laced approach rooted deeply in Argentine tradition. Carrera grew up watching his father build asados with whatever they had: firewood, a grill, and whatever anyone brought to throw over the flame.

“The true essence of an asado engages family and friends long before the food hits the table,” Carrera says. “Growing up, there wasn’t any one particular dish that jumped out. It was the communal nature. It was about being together.”

That ethos shapes everything at Asado Life, where housemade chorizo links, tomahawk steaks, and short rib empanadas sizzle over dual asado stations, sending smoke curling into the sea breeze. Every sauce, every dough, every sausage is made from scratch. Even the grills themselves — featuring signature V-grates and braseros to separate fire from food — are handcrafted in-house and sold under Carrera’s Urban Asado brand.

“We wanted people to see the difference,” Carrera says. “You’re not cooking over gas. You’re not cooking over charcoal smoke. You’re cooking over clean-burning embers. It’s a dance.”

Ask any asador, and they’ll tell you — fire is not a passive partner.

“It’s relentless,” Bud says. “You’re not in control. You’re reacting to this wild, rebellious thing. There’s no pause button. You screw up, it’s done.”

But that pressure, he adds, is exactly what makes it so human. “The fire doesn’t care how many people are watching, but you do. And when you nail it, when that steak comes out perfect, or the ribs pull clean, you feel it.”

Over in Pensacola, Brother Fox chef Darian Hernandez fuses that same elemental energy with elevated Spanish technique. Having cooked for the likes of José Andrés and studied open-fire grilling in Spain, Hernandez saw an opportunity to bring that communal energy home, where backyard crawfish boils and beer-can chicken rule.

“Our carne asada for two, it’s primal, meant to be shared,” he says. “You get your hands dirty, you pass tortillas, you sip wine while it cooks. It’s everything I love about live fire: messy, slow, joyful.”

That slow rhythm is intentional, he adds. Asado is meant to unfold in waves: tapas to start, the main course landing just as conversation deepens, maybe a bottle or two emptied. “It’s a vibe,” Hernandez says. “It’s not fast food. It’s how we reconnect.”

And in Hollywood, Florida, the team at Lasso Kosher Grill is giving asado yet another approach, bringing the flavors of traditional Argentinian barbecue to a kosher farm setting. Diners feast on bone-in flanken and skirt steak cooked a la estaca, over open flame. Kids run through rows of vegetables. Wood smoke drifts through mango trees. It’s asado, yes, but kosher, rustic, and deeply Floridian.

That’s what makes this Florida scene so compelling: it’s not trying to imitate the South or out-Texas Texas. It’s forging its own path — where brisket might come with chimichurri, where Jewish and Latin traditions meet under a palm tree and where the fire is both a tool and a symbol, a cultural remix rooted in memory, identity, and belonging.

Florida didn’t set out to join the Barbecue Belt. It’s creating its own flame-lit frontier.