Last week, a neighborhood-famous "BBQ and soul cuisine cook" became one of 16 semifinalists for the James Beard Award for Best Chef (Northwest and Pacific). Lil Red's Takeout and Catering, also called Lil Red Jamaican BBQ and Soul Cuisine, is known throughout Seattle as the best barbecue spot in town. Now, its owner and head chef, Erasto "Big Red" Jackson, has received personal recognition for his family-inspired fare.

Jackson says he started selling plates of home-cooked BBQ from the back of a 1991 Volvo station wagon. While word of his flavorful foods spread across King County, he and his wife, Leleith "Lil" Jackson, saved up.

Together, their cultural traditions combined with their nicknames to transform a former Rainier Avenue S. butcher shop into one-of-a-kind Lil Red's in 2016. Fit snugly between Mount Baker and Columbia City, the unassuming spot has been a Rainier Valley staple ever since.

Lil's Jamaican heritage brings jerk chicken, pork, and bony escovitch fish to the menu. Red's take on the classic salt-and-pepper Texas brisket, BBQ pork, and Louisiana po' boy are regionally renowned, having appeared in multiple online neighborhood forums over the years. Jackson's dishes demonstrate a masterful seasoning knowledge, though he says he knows his menus so well he "doesn't even know" how to describe what he puts in his spice mixes anymore.

For those who don't eat meat, Jackson offers a spiced mac n' cheese, Jamaican deep-fried plantains, rice and peas, "not your traditional" yams, salad, and garlic mashed potatoes.

"Food, going out to eat, it should be an experience," he said.

Multiple honors
Last year, Lil Red's was named one the nation's top 20 Black-owned BBQ restaurants by James Beard Award—winning certified barbecue judge Adrian Miller in his book Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue. After its release, Jackson recalled, there was an influx of first-time customers, some of whom drove over an hour just to taste his oxtail.

Now, Lil Red's is being honored for the second time in under a year. Just before the recent end of Black Restaurant Week Northwest, which Lil Red's participated in, Jackson received word of his nomination for the James Beard Best Chef award.

"I'm still coming to grips that I'm on the list," said Jackson. "You're never ready when the Lord blesses you with something like this. And whether you're a chef or not, he thinks you are. So, I'll accept that."

The James Beard Foundation Awards were established in 1990, just nine years after Beard himself came out as Gay in a revised memoir. The awards focus on culinary arts and aim to recognize exceptional talent and achievement, according to the website.

While being a semifinalist means that Jackson may not see the award in the end, he said he is excited to be recognized at all. He is one of seven on the list that hail from Seattle, but one of the only home cooks without classical culinary training.

The James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards finalists will be revealed on Wednesday, March 16, and winners will be celebrated at the ceremony on Monday, June 13, 2022, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.