But every loss feeds a new hope in your heart. This winter, hope came in threes. Barbecue hounds ran to Gowanus to get burnt ends and char siu pork steak at Fletcher's Brooklyn Barbecue, and to Williamsburg to find out whether BrisketTown deserved to be crowned the Brisket King of New York in a recent cook-off. They descended on the East Village to take apart Flintstonian beef ribs at Mighty Quinn's Barbeque and watch men in heavy black gloves grab pork shoulder by the fistful and shake it into dripping hunks — yes, real pulled pork on Second Avenue.

All three places slow-cook their barbecue with hardwood only, no gas allowed. All three places serve meat that is largely raised on pastures or outdoors, including pork from old breeds with flavorful rosy flesh and a thick girdle of white fat that bastes the meat as it melts. All are worth noticing, and one of them, Mighty Quinn's, comes as close to delivering on all fronts as any barbecue place the city has seen so far.

Mighty Quinn's got its start as a stall at Smorgasburg, the open-air souk for start-up deliciousness on the Brooklyn waterfront. Hugh Mangum, a drummer and cook who worked under Jean-Georges Vongerichten, drove there on weekends hauling brisket he had smoked in Hunterdon County, N.J. The meat was deliberately, slowly sliced, and the lines were notoriously long.

A 30-minute wait could make a stale bagel taste good, so the greater efficiency of Mighty Quinn's operation makes it easier to evaluate Mr. Mangum's work.

The restaurant, which opened in December, runs on the cafeteria model, with meat at the start of the assembly line, drinks at the end and shiny metal trays that you ferry to a table made of century-old spruce salvaged from the Puck Building. The counter workers are quick and usually friendly, although once when I asked for three-quarters of a pound of brisket I got an unsmiling, have-it-our-way reply: "You can get a pound or a half-pound."

With digital scales in use, why?

Half a pound at a time, it became clear that Mr. Mangum's scope has widened well beyond brisket. The only disappointment is the chicken, no better or worse than what a skilled weekend cook can produce with a kettle grill. And while there is nothing wrong with a smoked hot sausage, the one here isn't quite strong enough to build a meal around.

With its cuts of pork and beef, though, Mighty Quinn's gets serious, smoking more cuts of meat more skillfully than its rivals, except, perhaps, Daisy May's, which unfortunately obscures its handiwork in sticky sauces.

The pulled pork is the only one in town that doesn't make you embarrassed for New York. It is staggeringly good. The inside meat is slick with the flavor of old-school pork butt; the black, chewy outer rind looks as if it fell into the fire. Don't be fooled, though; the flavor of smoke and sweet fat is most concentrated there.

The carvers splash the pulled pork with the house barbecue sauce, which balances sugar with vinegar and mustard; Mr. Mangum calls it Texalina because it blends the styles of Texas and North Carolina. It comes close to being an all-purpose condiment, but the rich butt would still benefit from a more bracingly acidic treatment.

Spare ribs are exceptional, too, meaty and juicy, with a smoky outer ring the color of cherry soda. They are brushed with a little paprika to enhance the oak, cherry and apple smoke they picked up over many hours in a pit made in Mesquite, Tex.

The beef rib is an instant conversation stopper, a long block of impressively tender meat clinging to a Jurassic curve of bone. It surely upstages the brisket in theatricality, and possibly in flavor as well, though it's a close call. The brisket is cooked patiently to render much of the fat from the top cap, moistening even the leaner lower muscle until it gleams. A simple rub of salt and pepper is subdued but effective. The meat is not as thoroughly suffused with smoke as the best products of Texas, but it has as much finesse as anything I have ever eaten from a cardboard box.

The carvers sprinkle the barbecue at Mighty Quinn's with Maldon salt. This is nice, but it would be even nicer if the restaurant put salt and pepper, or better still a salt-pepper blend, on the table, alongside the brown-glass bottles of that sauce.

In some barbecue joints in the South, the awfulness of the side dishes is a point of pride. New York, still struggling to be taken seriously, tries harder. Mighty Quinn's baked beans, darkened with molasses, roughed up with mustard and choked with bacon, may be the best I've tasted. If your timing is lucky, you will place your order just as a carver is sweeping a handful of fresh brisket trimmings from the butcher block into the pan.

There is a salad of peas and edamame coated with goat cheese that people seem to like, although it's a little out of place here. Perfectly at home, though, is the sweet potato casserole, which is like a pie without a crust. Actually, with its topping of pecans in brown sugar, it is more like two pies, and is as close as Mighty Quinn's comes to serving dessert.

The natural enemy of well-smoked barbecue in New York is, of course, New Yorkers. The ones who work for the city can shut down a pit at a moment's notice if they decide the smoke has not been thoroughly scrubbed and filtered, citing concerns about air quality.

Some of us believe that the aromas of brisket and ribs improve air quality, but rules are rules. The cost of a flue that satisfies the government, Mr. Mangum said, can run from $10,000 to $15,000 for each floor. Mighty Quinn's is in a six-story building. Hill Country's flue is 11 stories high and Blue Smoke's is 15 stories.

Doing the math, many pitmasters are now planting their smokestacks on the low rooftops across the East River. Fletcher's opened in November on an unphotogenic strip of Third Avenue in Gowanus that, against all odds, has become something of a restaurant row.

The sides made the strongest case for Fletcher's, like the beans that lap up wood smoke as they bake in the pit next to the meats; the crisp house-made refrigerator pickles, put up in a jar; and the macaroni and cheese when it is topped with the great burnt-end chili.

Although the meats are all well seasoned and admirably smoky, nearly everything I tried in two visits tended toward dryness in one degree or another. This was more pronounced in the brisket and burnt ends than in the ribs, which were still juicy and pink. Sauces helped lubricate the thinly sliced pork steaks, like the char siu steak, with its Chinatown seasonings.

As the cooks learn the idiosyncrasies of their J & R smoker, Fletcher's meats may come closer to an ideal balance. Pitmasters are nothing if not obsessed, losing sleep to tend their fires, adjusting to each day's temperature and humidity.

The most obsessed pitmaster in New York may well be Daniel Delaney, who hitched a cast-iron offset smoker to the back of a U-Haul truck in Texas and drove it to Brooklyn. Before he opened BrisketTown in November, he sold brisket by subscription. He did his research, and sells slabs of cheese, like a lightly crunchy and caramelized Comté, in homage to the days when barbecue purveyors doubled as grocers (although he is surely the first pitmaster in history to utter the words, "We've started working with Bedford Cheese to curate our cheese program").

The most atmospheric of the three restaurants, BrisketTown gets the props right: the neon steer over the butcher block; the paper towel rolls used as an element of décor. You could almost believe you were in Texas if the customers weren't all as skinny as drainpipes.

Mr. Delaney pushes cooking time and seasoning to extremes. He rubs the brisket generously with salt and cracked peppercorns and smokes it for many, many hours, until it is very, very tender. The style has its fans, who line up before the doors open at 6:30 and keep coming until the brisket sells out, as it almost always does.

But I was a skeptic. Long cooking had made the meat too soft; the fatty brisket one night had so little structure I could have eaten it with a spoon. And the edges were so peppery, that's all I tasted; when I got to the milder interior, my mouth was almost numb. The spare ribs, rubbed less lavishly, were more satisfying.

Recently I started a fantasy barbecue league. Now I'm building my dream New York City barbecue restaurant with elements from all over town. I've got the soundtrack and the corn pudding from Hill Country; the pickles and chili mac from Fletcher's; the pork belly and beers from Fette Sau; the beans, pulled pork, brisket and both kinds of ribs from Mighty Quinn's; the enthusiasm, atmosphere and cheese from BrisketTown.

I like our chances this year.

Fletcher's Brooklyn Barbecue, open Wednesday to Monday for lunch and

dinner, 433 Third Avenue (Sixth Street),

Gowanus, Brooklyn; (347) 763-2680; fletchersbklyn.com.

BrisketTown, open daily for dinner,

359 Bedford Avenue (South Fifth Street), Williamsburg, Brooklyn; (718) 701-8909; delaneybbq.com.

Mighty Quinn's Barbeque

★★

103 Second Avenue (Sixth Street), (212) 677-3733, mightyquinnsbbq.com

ATMOSPHERE Plain, with a Chipotle-like quick-service feel, although reclaimed wood tables and stacks of oak, cherry and apple lend some warmth.

SERVICE Typically but not unfailingly genial.

SOUND LEVEL Moderate.

RECOMMENDED Brisket, pulled pork, beef rib, spare ribs, sweet potato casserole, burnt-end baked beans.

DRINKS AND WINE Craft beers on tap or in bottles; the only wine is the house wine of the South, iced tea, with several good syrups to sweeten it.

PRICES Most meats, $7 to $8.50 a serving or $12 to $22 a pound; beef rib, $23; sides, $3 for small, $5.75 for medium, $11.25 for large.

OPEN Daily for lunch and dinner.

RESERVATIONS Not accepted.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS The entrance on Sixth Street and the accessible restroom are on street level.