A Little Smoke Makes Butter Even Better — Just Ask These Chefs

It can evoke a backyard barbecue or stand in for bacon fat. Here’s why chefs keep smoked butter close at hand.

Credit: Courtesy of Picala

At Off Alley, the headline-grabbing Seattle restaurant, chef Evan Leichtling embraces seasonal cooking in all its forms — so much so that his ever-changing menu lives on a chalkboard, ready for reinvention each week. Despite that head-spinning unpredictability, there’s one constant in his kitchen: smoked butter, an ingredient he often returns to again and again. “It’s always just around the corner,” he says. 

In the summer, he uses it to evoke outdoor barbecues and pairs it with heirloom tomatoes. Later in the year, during winter’s seafood season, he uses it to complement Dungeness crab, which he serves suspended in a smoked butter sauce.

Credit: Courtesy of Off Alley

Chefs across the United States are embracing smoked butter’s haunting flavor, using it to unlock new dimensions in their dishes, spice up their bread program, and even replace the umami of bacon fat.

At tapas restaurant Picala in Los Angeles, chef Luis Sierra serves smoked butter alongside his table bread. Across the city, three Michelin-starred Somni has featured smoked butter since opening in its current iteration in 2024. Chef Aitor Zabala currently serves it with a foam made with savory Japanese dashi alongside the glossy, multi-layered potato croissant on Somni’s tasting menu. He’s also used it to finish meats or brush onto brioche. 

At Atlanta’s Pataaka, chef Anish Nair serves smoked butter atop his fermented black garlic chicken tikka.

Credit: Courtesy of Pataaka

In some cases, smoked butter stands in for other flavors. At Lazy Bear in San Francisco, a restaurant known for its cult-favorite cultured butter, 2016 F&W Best New Chef David Barzelay uses smoked butter in lieu of bacon fat in the vegetarian version of the restaurant’s iconic whipped scrambled eggs. Its multi-layered flavor emulates the complexities of animal fat, says Barzelay. “We always have it around.” 

Credit: Courtesy of Lazy Bear

To make it, some chefs smoke their butter directly in a smoker. At Off Alley, Leichtling has used everything from a Big Green Egg to his current preferred method, an offset drum smoker. He cubes and stacks his butter to maximize air flow and increase surface area, leading to more smoke flavor. The butter is often placed over ice to keep the temperature down, and smoked for anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes.

The key, says Leichtling, is the quality of the smoke. If it’s too harsh, the butter will pick up bitter, acrid flavors. He’s very particular about the quality of smoke he infuses into his butter; his goal, he says, is a gentler “blue, wispy smoke.” He uses dry wood for clean, consistent smoke and maintains ample air flow while smoking, which he says allows the smoke “to stay clean and sweet.” 

Credit: Courtesy of Off Alley

Others, like Picala’s Sierra, melt the butter first, then add embers to infuse it. After removing the embers, he then blends and cools the butter over an ice bath before freezing and whipping prior to serving alongside bread. 

Chefs often experiment with wood to impart different flavors. Leichtling has used everything from applewood to branches from his backyard plum tree, while Zabala has smoked with pine, cherry, and cedar, and currently uses Jack Daniel’s whiskey barrel wood chips at Somni. Aiming to up the flavor even further, Zabala has added dried herbs like rosemary, bay leaf, and thyme to perfume the smoke. 

With its high fat content and milk sugars, butter is a particularly excellent vehicle for that elusive fire-kissed flavor, according to Zabala. Smoking it, however, unlocks something beyond just flavor. “Fire is the first thing we learned to cook with as humans,” says Zabala. “It’s pretty basic, but over the years, it’s so powerful, so intrinsic, so natural, and something we always recognize when we put it in our mouths.”

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* This article was originally published here