What comes to mind when you think of French food? Cheese, steak frites, escargot, fine wine – and barbecue?

As barbecue editor for Texas Monthly Daniel Vaughn discovered in a recent trip to Paris, they’ve got it.

“The guy who runs the place is Thomas Abramowicz,” Vaughn says. “He actually came to Texas and toured around here and worked with a bunch of pit masters here in Texas – Louie Mueller Barbecue being one of them.”

Ambramowicz has a J&R smoker, which he says cost him $5,000 just to ship over to France.

“I met the guy in New York, I met him in line for the bathroom at Hill Country Barbecue,” he says. “He walks up and says ‘Are you Daniel Vaughn?’ and he asked me if I would introduce him to Wayne Miller who happened to be there for the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party. This was back in 2013. He decided to quit his job selling fancy cognacs, and stuff…and he decided he wanted to open up a barbecue joint in Paris.”

Listen to the full interview in the player above.