Oklahoma City Restaurants

Iron Starr is located at 3700 N. Shartel (map). They are open Monday through Saturday for lunch and dinner. Menus and online reservation are available at their website.

When I first saw Iron Starr’s outdoor sign declaring it was an urban barbeque restaurant, I was immediately intrigued. I thought of Manhattan’s Blue Smoke, which serves its urban take on barbeque both in its upstairs restaurant and its downstairs jazz club, the Jazz Standard. Barbeque and jazz — now that’s hard to beat.

Well, Iron Starr doesn’t have a jazz club in the basement, but it’s the only place I know where you can experience the unique taste of urban barbeque in Oklahoma City. Of course, this causes me to ask, “what exactly is urban barbeque?”

I’ll give you my take — urban barbeque offers moderate portions of meat served along some creative side dishes on nice plates in an upscale atmosphere. That would be as compared to regular barbeque, where success typically means enormous piles of meat and a big roll of paper towels on the table.

Iron Starr delivers on my urban barbeque expectations with a quality that satisfies on all fronts. Their meats are very well prepared and served tastefully in moderate portions with a delicious sauce. But what really keeps me going back to Iron Starr are the side dishes. You can choose from a variety of them. They are all creative, beautiful and tasty.

My favorite is the dutch oven potatoes. It’s sweet potatoes with an amazing combination of heat and sweet that defies description. I also like the whole green beans. Seems pretty mundane, I know, but they cook them just right, leaving the color and crispness intact, and combine them with some red peppers and garlic for a little extra flavor. Speaking of flavor, the seasoning of everything is really superb. Oh, and the cornbread — perfectly moist and flavorful. Most people I’ve ever eaten with try the fancy mac and cheese. I’ve had a bite of it off someone else’s plate and it is good as well. It just seems that you can’t go wrong with any of their sides. They even offer a vegetable plate where you can just choose a bunch of sides for your meal. I’d do it, but I always seem to want some meat, too. Decisions, decisions.

The atmosphere at Iron Starr is superb. They’re in a quaint, old building near Crown Heights, and what a nice job they’ve done inside combining deep, rich woods and colors with pleasant art adorning the walls. It’s comfortable, not stuffy, but still sophisticated. I always feel myself relax a bit when I walk into the room. That might be because we always leave the kids with grandparents when we go. Nah, I’m sure it’s the atmosphere.

Finally, my wife said she would disown me if I didn’t mention the chocolate cake. The thing is, I’m not really a big dessert eater. I choose to spend my calories on the savory rather than the sweet. But, I can tell you from the few bites I’ve had off of my wife’s plate that Iron Starr has a very good chocolate cake. I do have a problem with it, though. It costs $8. Granted, it’s big enough to serve six people, but that’s the problem. I don’t normally dine with six people. So, it seems a bit much to get an enormous $8 slice of cake when it’s just the two of you, especially when one of you doesn’t eat much dessert. That said, my wife would tell you it’s a steal at $8.

Speaking of pricing, I’ve known some people who feel that Iron Starr is a little pricey in general. Honestly, though, I think that comes from the normal expectations associated with “barbeque.” You just can’t go to Iron Starr thinking it’s going to be like Earl’s or Bad Brad’s just because it has the word “barbeque” in the title. It’s a whole other level and one worth the extra cost. Chocolate cake aside, the cost really isn’t even that much higher. You can spend $10-15 on a dinner at Iron Starr but you can get pretty close to that at Earl’s. Overall, you may spend a little more at Iron Starr, but you get an elevated experience that is well worth it. Plus, here’s a hint, my wife and I often split a dinner and it is plenty of food for both. We do the same at Earl’s.

So, the food is great and it’s carefully presented on nice plates in an upscale yet comfortable atmosphere. That says urban barbeque to me. But, just to be thorough, I asked Keith Paul, owner of A Good Egg Dining Group (the company behind Iron Starr, Cheever’s and Red Prime Steak), how he defines urban barbeque. Here’s what Keith had to say:

“Urban BBQ - in one word: “citified.” We combine elements of fine dining with true smokehouse flavor. The menu offerings are truly unique: bacon-wrapped quail, excellent salads and fresh seafood. These all make our concept stand apart from the normal BBQ joint.”

Well said, Keith.

However you define it, I don’t know of another restaurant in Oklahoma City that offers it. If you know another place you’d like to mention, or if you’d like to offer your own definition of urban barbeque, please leave a comment.

Other articles you might like:

• Cheever’s Cafe: love at first bite
• Chica’s Mexican Cafe: they serve fresh fruit (and other surprises)
• Cesar’s Grill: quasi-shadiness in Oklahoma City
• Oklahoma City goes ultra-hip with Red Prime Steak
• JT’s Bar-B-Que: Oklahoma City’s pork rib specialists

This article was posted by Tim Wall on Sunday, November 11th, 2007. It is filed in Barbeque, Central OKC. Please leave your comments below (we'd love to hear from you), or trackback from your own site.

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