Top Chef competitor and former chef of now defunct Rocca, Tiffany Faison recently opened Sweet Cheeks. The amount of buzz in the food community indicates how it popular it has become and a new hit in the Boston area.

Redbones, Blackstrap BBQ and Darryl’s are some of the Boston area restaurants who offer ribs and Southern fare. Dare we say it? Sweet Cheek’s BBQ ribs are some of the best in town.

The bar has large screen televisions and the dining area has a lot of wood. Many tables had the bucket of four biscuits with honey butter for $10. I’m sure they are unbelievable, but sometimes $3 for a canister of six Pillsbury biscuits and homemade honey butter sounds good too.

Wood in front of the kitchen area with a pile of blue camping trays.

The Sweet Cheeks menu includes pork, ribs, chicken with a choice of hot or cold scoops or sides ranging from $6 to $12 such as bbq beans, collard greens, mac n’ cheese and coleslaw and carrot and raisin salad. The fried items includes hush puppies, fried green tomatoes and fried okra.

Patrons can order meat as sandwiches ranging from $10 to $12 or by increments of 1/4 lb, as well from $16/lb for the pulled chicken to $19/lb for the berkshire pork belly.

The little design additions were vintages pieces, as if they were freshly picked from Antique Archaeology.  I really loved the details of the antique scale and glass bottle Coca Colas in the fridge. Frank and Mike would be proud.

After checking out the menu and vibe one afternoon, we decided we would order take out another time. On our evening visit to the restaurant, the signs were vibrant all lit up.

Although Rocky Top cocktail with smokey apple cider moonshine, carriage house apple brandy, spiced apple cider, vya sweet vermouth ($10) looked awesome, but what caught my eye more was the beer selection, especially the Crispin and Hoss beers.

It was difficult to decide what to order for take out, so we decided to grab suggestions from the hostess and she suggested we get the ribs with broccoli casserole and the farm salad. Although she estimated we would wait 15 minutes our take out bag was ready in ten. Underpromise and over deliver.

We got the Berkshire half rack for $19 with our two scoops. Our rib tray was served with two slices of soft white bread, to sop up the sauces and slightly tangy pickled cucumbers and onions.

The high quality, dry-rubbed smoked ribs were lip smacking good. The thicker sweet barbeque sauce and North Carolina style vinegar sauce enhanced the flavor of the meat.

We would go back to the restaurant for the two sides, Cita’s Broccoli Cheese Casserole and the Farm Salad alone.

The salad had arugula, tiny brussels sprouts, halved red grapes, roasted hazelnuts, and a sprinkling of Pecorino Romano cheese. The broccoli casserole tasted like a broccoli and cheese quiche and made me want to try to recreate the recipe right away.

We will be back and make sure we make room for desserts. The cleverly named white trash fruit salad for $6 or the Giant Nutter Butter for $8 caught our eye.