A Taste of Louisiana Makes Its Way to Austin at Parish Barbecue

Holden Fulco is no stranger to Central Texas barbecue. He’s got a resume that could appease even the staunchest of brisket enthusiasts. His foothold in the world of smoked meats and sides started at Franklin Barbecue in 2019. After a brief but impactful stint where he says he “learned a lot about how green” he was, Fulco moved over to Interstellar BBQ in early 2020, two weeks before the pandemic shut everything down. With the restaurant closed during the height of COVID, Fulco remembers staff tinkering with recipes and taking the time to “try new things, and throw stuff against the wall to see what stuck,” he says. He’s also worked with Pinkerton’s Barbecue, opening its San Antonio location. Now, Fulco is ready to open his own barbecue spot.

Parish Barbecue was born as a series of pop-ups and became his first food truck, launched on March 22, 2025, in collaboration with Batch Craft Beer & Kolaches. The Louisiana-influenced dishes at Parish Barbecue come, in many cases, straight from the recipes of dishes he ate while growing up. The meats include Central Texas beef sausage that he calls “the most traditional thing on the menu.” The brisket, from Creekstone Farms, is coated in Tabasco and finished with Cajun seasonings. The pork ribs get the same treatment as the brisket, plus a bath in Tabasco-infused vinegar and a glaze finish made from Steen’s cane syrup. The ham, made from Creekstone pork butts (Fulco believes his is the only place serving it in Texas), is served with a Creole mustard glaze. “Your traditional ham comes from the leg, which is a lot leaner,” he says. “I wanted to be more luxurious than that… It’s got a lot of moisture, and the fat is nice and creamy.”

The most unusual meat on the menu is the pulled duck with spiced cracklins made from the duck skin. Duck hunting was big in Fulco’s family. “The idea behind it is to do something like pulled pork, because I honestly think pulled pork is boring,” Fulco says. The duck’s skin is removed and used for the cracklins, while the duck itself is seasoned with orange zest and orange pepper, then smoked for three hours. To finish, they confit the meat and coat it in duck fat, fresh orange juice, more orange zest, and Steen’s Cane Vinegar (this light molasses-style syrup also turns up in the ham glaze and the brownies on the dessert menu). Finally, the dish is sprinkled with the crisp skins.

The crawfish cornbread dressing leads the sides, a traditional Louisiana dish Fulco describes as “Thanksgiving meets Mardi Gras.” It contains “all the best things about etouffee” — that is, the cheese, the Cajun holy trinity (minced onion, celery, and bell pepper), and Cajun seasoning mixed with crumbled cornbread. Right now, the team is baking it in their smokers due to limited space in the food truck’s pits. The pimento macaroni and cheese, another hit closely inspired by Interstellar’s recipe, is made by blending slices of red peppers into the dish with pimento cheese and then topping it with Zapp’s Voodoo Chips, a Louisiana favorite. There’s also an Acadiana (a mash-up of Acadian and Louisiana) potato salad, with potatoes boiled in crawfish boil seasoning before it is chopped and slathered in a combination of mayo, Creole mustard, chopped eggs, olives, and topped with green onion. “It’s a little sweet, and a little vinegary… It’s definitely not your traditional picnic [variety],” Fulco says.

Acid, like the vinegary notes in the potato salad, features big on the sides menu. There’s the Parish Pickle Plate, featuring seasonal pickled vegetables to give diners something to help cut through the richness and fat inherent in smoked meats. The remoulade vinegar slaw is a statement — Fulco, who strongly prefers a vinegar-based slaw to mayo, lets the cabbage sit to soak in for a few hours. The Creole tomato salad, available seasonally, offers a nice acidic bite. All of the sides, except the crawfish dressing, are vegetarian. For those who don’t eat meat, there is also a blackened veggie muffuletta made with a blackened cauliflower steak, smoked eggplant, Provolone, and olive salad. The smoked red bean dip, made with confit green and red bell peppers, garlic, the Cajun trinity, and refried camellia red beans, is served cold because that’s how Fulco says it tastes best. “In New Orleans, red beans and rice is a big deal,” Fulco says.

Fulco says he’s careful about sourcing his food because he prioritizes humanely raised and sustainable farms and ranches with high-quality products. While he tries to get locally-raised meats and vegetables, he is currently working with the Kansas City-based Creekstone Farms, a significant brisket producer that he notes Franklin previously used. “They have probably the most ethically raised beef you can get that isn’t from Texas,” Fulco says, noting that he is currently in talks with Texas-based company, Heartbrand Beef.

Fulco is comfortable in the barbecue world after so many years working at it; this wasn’t always his plan. He got his business degree and even toiled around in real estate before deciding barbecue was his passion. He wanted to make it his career. This pivot horrified his parents, he says, but the business degree informed his search for the right opportunity to come around. The owners of Batch Craft Beer & Kolaches already had the food truck and were looking for a business partner to run it. Fulco was looking for an easy start-up and a food truck. Thankfully, Batch had already paid for one. “They invested in the business by getting us a little walk-in cooler that’s right behind our trailer, which has helped a ton for storage and prep,” Fulco says.

Parish and Batch’s owners have also teamed up to produce their own beer, the Parish Weisse, a Berliner Weisse-style brew that Fulco says goes great with barbecue. “We’re going to make some different syrups, depending on the time of year, that the bartender can add in. We may even do a Hurricane-flavored one,” Fulco says.

Correction: Thursday, April 3, 2025, 4:01 p.m.: Holden Fulco’s name has been updated throughout.