Texas barbecue has never been short on swagger or people willing to argue about who does it best. But San Antonio just picked up some serious new bragging rights.
Esaul and Grecia Ramos, the husband-and-wife team behind the acclaimed 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio, just smoked, grilled, and baked their way to the championship of Food Network’s inaugural “Pitmasters” competition.
They didn’t play it safe, either. Their five-course finale ran from oysters and chorizo to duck carnitas and smoked shrimp capped off with a dessert somehow perfectly pulled off in a smoker.
Eight weeks of competition, $30,000 for the win and a new title, too: “Whisperers of the Smoke.”
They joined the Standard for a chat about their big win.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Take us back to the moment they called your names. What was going through your heads? Esaul, do you want to begin?
Esaul Ramos: If you watch the show, it’s a face of disbelief. Not that I didn’t think we had what it takes to win it, but just going up against such a skilled other team, like John [Jackson] and Connie [DeSousa] brought it. They had a set of skills that I’m not well-versed in.
But at the end of the day, it was disbelief and just excitement and confirmation that we should have been there and what we were doing was exactly what needed to be done.
Grecia, why did you want to do this in the first place?
Grecia Ramos: So when Esaul first presented the show to me, he was, you know, giving me the rundown of what they had told him and it just sounded really awesome. Like it seemed different. It wasn’t your typical Food Network show, and I was very excited.
So the first thing that I asked him was like, “who are you taking?” And he’s like, “you.” I’m like, oh, well, “then hell yeah, we’re doing it.” Like, I would love to do this. And especially if I get to do it with you, like, heck yeah, let’s do it.
I was really excited. It seemed like camping on steroids and I love pressure, I work well under pressure.
This was a national competition, but it has to be said that final menu sure did feel a whole lot San Antonio. Tell us about that menu. How important was it that the food represented where you’re from?
Grecia Ramos: The fact that we made what we made for the finale, we really wanted it to be us, right?
We had carried ourselves through the entire season, already showcasing San Antonio flavors, showcasing where we came from and how we grew up and the flavors that we grew with. And each and every one of those courses really showed our story — from our first date to ending with the cafecito de olla and the conchas, something that we all grew up with here in San Antonio.
Grandma, grandpa, your tías would hang around and do the little merienda at the end of the day and they would all talk and kind of go throughout the week, right? And that really was something that I really wanted to highlight.
Grecia, you make this sound so family. Esaul, did you feel like it was a family affair? What was your sense of it going in?
Esaul Ramos: Definitely. I mean, our whole life is almost, I feel, a family affair. And it’s like she said, from the oysters that we made — that was kind of our first date — to the carnitas that were made on that show…
Like we grew up eating carnitas. It’s one of my father’s favorite things to make right? So we grew up eating that and instead of using pork, which I didn’t want to use, I was like what else is there? And there happened to be duck. So I was you know what? Let’s make some duck carnitas.
But yeah, just showcasing that, from the agua chiles… It’s one of mine and my wife’s favorite dishes to eat. And then, like she said, closing it off with the conchas and the cafe de olla is just something we grew up with.
Grecia, talk about those conchas just a bit. Making a concha in a smoker, had you done that before?
Grecia Ramos: Never. I had never baked any type of bread in a smoker, let alone a dessert.
So this was a very… I mean, this was challenging enough already. But just really trying to make something where I don’t have my oven, I don’t have controlled steam, I can’t just walk away from it and be like, “oh, that’s fine. I’ll come back in 20 minutes.” It’s like, oh crap, like I better not mess this up.
So, I think that the steak course that you had in that final, you called it
your “ribeye redemption,” if I’m not mistaken, because you had undercooked one earlier in the competition. I’m wondering what eight weeks of being pushed outside of your comfort zone taught you, given all of your experience — ten years running a barbecue restaurant… Did you pick up new ideas in the course of working under that kind of pressure for the show?
Esaul Ramos: Definitely right. It’s hard not to come back with new ideas, with the fact that you were able to push yourself to a level that that you didn’t think you could be able to right?
I mean, at the restaurant, it’s very easy to just put it on cruise control because it’s almost the same thing. It’s almost repetitive every day, right? But here, it’s like you have to really pull out. What other tricks do you have in the hat?
Coming back, if I could dig a hole in the ground at 2M, I would do that already, right? And I’m going to try and figure out a way that the city doesn’t give me any slack over it. And if we can make it happen, I’m definitely going to start making that happen, right?
Spoken like a true entrepreneur, I must say.
Well, now step back for a moment. You built businesses together. You raised family together. You’ve now survived a TV cooking competition together. Let’s play a little game.
Grecia, what did you learn about your partner or about yourself or maybe yourselves as a team? What new did you learn about Esaul, for example?
Grecia Ramos: Um, with Esaul, I think I’ve always known his capabilities when it comes to cooking, to being a pitmaster. You know, I’ve seen him from opening up to him to where we are now. And I’ve been in awe of how his brain works and how he just looks at something, he looks at the problem, and he knows how to solve it.
And this really, I feel like, highlighted that as we were going through challenges — as things were coming our way. It was just so neat to see him still be able to keep his composure and just look at me and not just keep us in composure, but treat me with, I don’t want to say delicacy, but he just was so encouraging with me. And I feel like that’s something that really brought us together.
We’ve always been a very solid team, but this just really highlighted that we are great together and I loved it.
Esaul, what did you learn about Grecia?
Esaul Ramos: I learned that she’s able to learn to believe in herself more, right? Like, she was real hesitant going into this, right?
And for me, the moment I knew that she wanted to do this show, I knew in the back of my head, okay, I’m taking my wife, and this is me judging right off the bat that no one else is gonna take a pastry chef. No one else is smart enough to take a pastry chef with them to this type of show.
Yeah, the smoke and the sugar. Man, that’s great!
Esaul Ramos: Exactly right. And for me, I was like no, we can make this happen. I just need the creativity that I know that she possesses, because she’s a fantastic pastry chef. But for her, it’s like I wanted her to be able to know that. She can do this in any type of setting, no matter what.
So that was beautiful, being able to just have my wife like come out and actually start believing more in her skillset than her just thinking baking is just in a controlled environment.
Any plans for that $30K? Maybe take each other out for dinner or something? I don’t know.
Esaul Ramos: I don’t know if you’ve ever been to our restaurant, but I got a parking lot I got to fix!
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