Matt Abdoo and Shane McBride
Matt Abdoo
Matt Abdoo is the chef and partner of Pig Beach BBQ, the critically acclaimed, award winning barbecue restaurant and beer garden located in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. Matt first earned his BBQ chops during his time working on America’s highly competitive barbecue team, Salty Rinse, receiving 2nd place medal for Whole Hog in 2015 and 1st Place for Poultry and Best Sauce (Mustard) at the annual Memphis in May World Championship. Since then, Matt and His Team have continued their winning streak every year taking home 1st Place Trophies in just about every ancillary category you can compete in at Memphis in May.
Prior to opening his own restaurants, Matt was the Chef de Cuisine of Del Posto and during is tenure, the restaurant received a coveted four-star review from the New York Times, and the Relais & Chateaux distinction. Raised in the small upstate New York town of New Hartford in an extremely tight-knit Italian American Lebanese family where he began his culinary training at a very young age by rolling meatballs and house made pasta with his Nona. Today, Matt is a frequent guest chef on The Today Show and can often be seen as a guest Judge or Talent on many Food Network program such as Beat Bobby Flay, the Kitchen, Battle of the Brothers, Kitchen Crash and Michael Symon’s Throwdown. Matt has also appeared on NBC’s The Chew, the Dr Oz Show and DirecTV’s Fantasy Zone.
Shane McBride
Southern boy at heart, Chef Shane McBride, secured his first kitchen job at the age of 18 and began home cookin’ as a young man to rescue his mother’s unsuccessful meatloaf dinners.
At age 19, he secured his first job in a professional kitchen at Narcissus in West Palm Beach, where he worked his way up from garde marger to sous chef.
His first mentor, chef Todd Jent, helped instill Shane’s career-long desire to constantly strive higher and seek out new challenges.
This drive, along with knowledge of classic French cooking techniques and a love of simple, straightforward flavors, led McBride into a roster of the most prestigious restaurant kitchens in the country, including Aureole with chef Charlie Palmer, the Four Star Lespinasse with chef Christian Delouvrier, Craftsteak and Colichhio & Sons with chef/owner Tom Colicchio then went on to run the show at Keith McNally’s bustling New York Balthazar restaurant group
Again, out of necessity, McBride started a competition barbeque team, Ribdiculous Bar-B-Krewe, to satisfy his craving for some real smoky Southern barbeque in the Big Apple.
He sunk his teeth into the project bringing together his closest Chef buddies, purchasing a competition smoker and rotisserie, practicing on weekends and spending his valuable vacation time at competitions, such as Memphis in May, where the Ribdiculous Bar-B-Krewe has won First Place in several categories
This BBQ obsession led to Shane joining the Pig Beach team in 2015 and helping to grow the brand to where it is today.