Smokehouse Sensation to Open in the South

Having taken the island’s taste buds by storm with his smoked meat and smokehouse sauces, Sam Levi is going one better this summer with a restaurant and a beachside cafe.

Smoky Sam’s BBQ will be launching at Foraging Vintners and the Cosy Nook in Port Erin this Spring, serving up not only quality food but locally sourced and produced food in a nostalgic smokehouse setting.

Having started working in pubs as a teenager before moving to Devon and working in fine dining restaurants, from there he worked in restaurants between working abroad during ski seasons, he then went on to work in a Smokehouse.

Sam said that despite ‘having never smoked anything in my life, it was just amazing’ and from there, a new love for smokehouse food was born.

However, it was a stag do and a delayed train that led to him developing Smoky Sam’s BBQ.

‘I was sat on a train and it was delayed for four hours so I sat and wrote my business plan, sent it to my girlfriend and I was like ‘this is what I want to do!’. By early May the smoker was delivered and we were in full swing, at the start the sauces really took off and continued to do so, we found a few restaurants and cafes wanting to use our smoked meats and it truly felt like my vision was coming true.

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Smoky Sam’s BBQ currently does four sauces, the classic Smokehouse BBQ, Smoky Chipotle BBQ, Apple BBQ and Smoked Peach & Habanero Hot Sauce (personal fave, absolutely stunning), which uses chilies from Fire Island. He plans to launch new flavours throughout the seasons, I hear there is a Rhubarb Hot sauce on the way!

Sam said: ‘We try to use local producers where we can, even if you just look at it from a purely price point of view, it is so expensive to import, so why would you not use Manx producers where you can, keep the money in our economy instead of paying for shipping costs from somewhere else.’

One of the items at the Cosy Nook will be a crab roll using the Manx Lobster Company as the main supplier, there will be Manx-sourced meat and other amazing ingredients wherever possible for the rest of the menu too.

‘We want the cosy nook to be a BBQ beach bar with nostalgic vibes,’ Sam explained. ‘My girlfriend has memories of being down there as a child eating crab rolls, so we really wanted to showcase this on our menu. We make our own pastrami so we’ll be making a Reuben sandwich, along with some other fun items.’

Smoky Sam’s BBQ at the Cosy Nook will be open in time for Easter weekend with FV opening a few weeks earlier on March 15 and we’re hoping to bring our readers a sneak peek behind the scenes ahead of then!

A Hint of what is to come

Sam will launch at Foraging Vintners on March 15 and at the Cosy Nook on March 28.