If you were to build a pitmaster in a lab, their background might look a lot like Bryan Furman’s. Born and raised in the South with grandparents who raised pigs, Furman trained as a professional welder before catching the barbecue bug in 2010, when he smoked a whole hog for his daughter’s 1st birthday.
All that experience made Furman something of a natural. In 2014, his backyard experiments quickly turned into a brick-and-mortar restaurant, where he used heritage hogs raised on area farms to his specifications. Accolades followed, with Bon Appetit naming Furman “Georgia’s New King of Barbecue” in 2018 and Food & Wine selecting him as one of its Best New Chefs of 2019. At his peak, Furman owned restaurants in Savannah and Atlanta and inside the Hawks basketball arena.
Now The Oregonian/OregonLive can exclusively report that Furman, a bonafide celebrity chef in his own right, has partnered with Portland’s own Gregory Gourdet to bring his signature spin on Southern barbecue to the Rose City. In 10 days, the duo will kick off Bryan Furman BBQ, a three-month “special residency” featuring smoked chicken, brisket, spare ribs, pulled pork, scratch-made sides and Furman’s peach-mustard sauce served in the basement beneath Gourdet’s live-fire Haitian restaurant, Kann…