Live Fire BBQ Festival kicks off at Botanical Gardens, Darwin, from 5pm Friday

Some of the Northern Territory’s best pitmasters and parrilla chefs will be down at the Botanical Gardens from 5pm Friday for the Live Fire BBQ Festival. Find out how you can get involved.

Meat-lovers, rejoice.

Some of the Northern Territory’s best pitmasters and parrilla chefs will be down at the Botanical Gardens from 5pm Friday for the Live Fire BBQ Festival.

The event — which is strictly no BYO — will continue from 11am Saturday until late.

Only asados, parrillas, BBQs, smokers and fire pits will be used to cook.

The event will run for most of Saturday. Picture: Thomas McLean

Gus, a butcher at Palmerston Quality Meats, said it was friendship that drove the festival.

“This is a gathering of friends … our little group has been smoking together for years,” he said.

“We’ve been prepping madly for the last three or four days.”

What makes this barbecue special, Gus says, is that it’s totally powered by wood, giving the meat a “natural flavour”.

Gus said he hoped to see Territorians head down and support local business.

“Come down and enjoy; we try to push as much local food into this as possible,” he said.

“There’s anything here from traditional American barbecue to the other side of it like the sweets, pork lollipops, pig on the spits, rum jungle sliders, burgers and more.”

Felipe Vieira of Gaucho’s Brazilian BBQ and Catering. Picture: Stephanie Hanlon

Felipe Vieira of Gaucho’s Brazilian BBQ and Catering, which will sell all sorts of meat from ribs and chorizos to picanhas (traditional rump cut in Brazil) and meat trays, said plenty of preparation went into a festival such as this.

“We do all kinds of things, even splitting the wood,” he joked.

“But we also do all the butcher things for the ribs, get everything organised and a bunch of other things, especially for big events like this,” he said.

Just like Gus’ reasoning, Mr Vieira said it was friendship that drove them.

“This is a union of friends,” he said.

Mr Vieira said the crew were friends before they started barbecuing professionally. Picture: Stephanie Hanlon

“We’ve always respected each other and we were all very good friends way before the barbecue.

“Then little by little we started our businesses, and it is a pleasure to be here with all of these legends.”

With enough support from Territorians, Mr Vieira said, more events such as these could continue to happen.

“It is very important for us to keep doing this, and it’s important for us to show people that we love what we do and then we can keep doing it and keep growing,” he said.

Originally published as Live Fire BBQ Festival kicks off at Botanical Gardens, Darwin, from 5pm Friday