Barbecue restaurant offers smoking hot taste of the USA in city centre

A familiar name to daytime diners, Sundays, which has been serving up roast dinners and the like in Cumbergate for more than a decade, has entered the evening fray.

With the big restaurant chains pulling in more and more diners to the booming Cathedral Square area, Sundays owner David Beever decided it was time to make the most of it.

So from Wednesday to Saturday, from 6pm until late, the restaurant is hosting BBQ Nights, and David has splashed out on a wood burning “smoker” to give meat lovers something different.

“Barbecue restaurants are huge in America,” said David, “and they are just starting to spring up in major cities in the UK, places like Reds True in Nottingham.

“I have wanted to do something in the evenings for a while, you have to keep moving.

“The chains have come into the square and I see this as an opportunity because they have brought a lot more people in town at night.”

David and his team have been cooking on the smoker, specially imported from America, for the past week or two to get the process right, and have been perfecting their service with invited guests... and getting fantastic feedback for the beef brisket, pulled pork, chicken wings and pork ribs which are the mainstay of the menu.

“The secret is low and slow,” he says.

“The beef can be in for 14 hours on 110 degrees, so the moisture is contained and the meat is more succulent.

“And it is cooked over wood, all the heat comes from the wood, and at the moment we are just using hickory to give consistency.”