Dining out: Holy Smoke BBQ and Grill

LAYTON — If the Barenaked Ladies got Western and opened a barbecue joint, it would be a lot like Layton's Holy Smoke BBQ and Grill.

For those of you who might not know, the Barenaked Ladies is a great Canadian alt-rock band whose strong musicality and lyricism are wedded to a wry, sometimes wacky, sense of humor.

In much the same way, the proprietors of Holy Smoke (who sign their mission statement, "Kinda-Famous Dan" and "Not-so-Famous Jeff") have wedded the fundamental methods that produce excellent barbecue with a sensibility that's creative, refreshing and fun.

Walking into the place, visitors will see a big sandwich board out front proudly advertising the fact that Holy Smoke has won absolutely no national awards for its food. And that's a puzzler, because we didn't have a single thing that wasn't homemade and delicious when we visited for a weeknight family dinner.

My husband ordered the Holy Smoke Round-Up sampler, a huge platter containing pulled pork, a quarter chicken, sliced brisket and two St. Louis rib bones, plus a corn muffin, three sides and a little pot of green Jell-O for each diner.

I saw the Jell-O as an homage to Utah, and I'm sure it is, but readers Bill and Faith Watson, who recommended Holy Smoke to me, pointed out that it also makes a great palate refresher, helping diners taste the differences between the many meats and sauces offered.

I had one of the (slightly) smaller platters, a selection of three meats plus two sides, corn muffin and Jell-O. From those platters, plus a few extra sides, we were able to feed our family of six and have a bit to take home for leftovers.

We tried all six of the platter meats, and all were excellent: mellow sausage sliced in a sweet-and-tangy sauce; juicy pulled pork that was more strongly flavored than most pork I've tried; unusual, tender and flavorful pulled chicken; roasted-quartered chicken that made supermarket rotisserie birds seem limp and bland; and lean, dark and strongly flavored brisket that was pulled rather than sliced.

All of those were good alone, and even better dipped in one of Holy Smoke's whimsically named sauces. There's Sweeter Than Your First Kiss, a familiarly flavored sauce that's sweet but strongly seasoned with a punchy, vinegary finish. There's Chili Berry, dark and sweet and just a bit spicy, with a smooth finish; probably my favorite. But the spicier, sweet-and-peppery mango-mango, and the flat-out hot chipotle varieties also were delicious.