Smoke & Donuts BBQ — Restaurant in Orlando

BBQ and Donuts. What a combination!

I finally got to try Smoke & Donuts BBQ after driving by the location a few previous times previously. Orlando has some excellent BBQ spots and after seeing great reviews, I was excited to add another BBQ spot to my list.

The first thing I will mention is I thought the lady at the cash register was very nice. This seems to be a locally owned spot and it's ALWAYS exciting to support the locals. With it comes that small business charm and I will go back just for that.

The concept of donuts and BBQ is so foreign to me which made it an exciting stop. The donuts were deep fried and topped right in front of you, giving you a freshly made warm donut to enjoy with your brisket.

Speaking of the brisket, it was incredibly moist, probably my favorite item on the menu (for now). For my order, I got the trio sampler, which came with 3 heaping piles of meat and a side for like twenty bucks. Great value in my opinion for what you get.

For my meats, I got the moist brisket, the pulled pork and pork belly, with the brussel sprouts on the side. I also added a side of Mac and cheese as the cashier recommended. Everything was good.

My favorite item was the brisket. And the pork belly, although not as crispy as I'd expect, was also very good. The only thing I'd say is I found a lot of the meat lacking big flavors. I'm not sure how it was cooked or prepared, but it taste a bit stripped of some of the wood flavoring (if smoked) or spices. I had to use the BBQ sauce to get the most of the meats. The pulled pork was a tad dry and had almost no flavor. Don't take this wrong, the meats were still good.

The BBQ sauces were the savior. I enjoyed both. Each had a unique taste, with me favoring the spicy BBQ sauce. At first, I wasnt a fan of the sweet BBQ sauce but I didnt give up and it eventually grew on me.

Now, I'll be honest about the sides, I wasn't a big fan. The Mac and cheese was okay but I couldn't even finish the brussel sprouts. I did not like the sauce it was made in. I was a tad let down by them. The taste wasn't fully developed, heavily influenced by what tasted like a salty soy sauce and some brown sugar. The flavors were not mixing well for me. I just felt like with the sides, they were trying to do too much to be different and missing the landing. But thankfully, the donut made me extremely happy.

The restaurant was pretty clean and mostly well contained. There was also plenty of seating. The BBQ bottles were a bit warn out.

Overall, I recommend giving this place a try. The food was good, It is a fun concept and needs to be shared with others in the community.

As for me, I will be back again get a second go around of the brisket and maybe the...

Used them for our wedding reception. I chose this vender due to the excellent reviews on The knot and other sites. I was also very pleased at the tasting that was provided prior to booking them for our wedding reception. It started off great. They were very helpful with dates, deposits and any questions. Prior to my wedding date I had to reach out several times to get them to send over the insurance information to the venue and it was finally sent over about 2-3 days before the wedding causing a lot of extra stress. The day of the wedding I was approached my one of the severing staff who asked for table clothes for the table and I told her that I spoke with Russ and was told linen, stainless steel servers and plates were apart of my service. They did not have linen and my food was served in disposable pans and some pans were just sat on the table and not on racks. The food was cold and did not taste nowhere near the food severed at the tasting. The guest were not happy and I really wished I had thought to take pictures at that time. I reached out to the owner and he offered a refund of $50 and raved how his staff went out of their way to buy the table clothes even though the were not apart of the package. The table clothes looked like something for a doll house so small, they barley cover the top of the table and were vinyl. I was insulted. You hope your guest rave about how delicious the food was, but all I received were excellent reviews about the doughnuts. I felt this should've been one of the best parts of the night and I felt I was truly let down. If you decide to go with them get everything in writing and take pictures. 2 stars given due to the excellent doughnuts.

This is a reply to Ian on 01/11/25. Again as spoken via email I told you I spoke with your father Russ, he was the person who worked with me and told me about the linen which was black in my case. It's also funny how you first offered a $50 refund but now it's $100 and today is the first day I was told circumstances arose to the reason aluminum pans were used. If this was the case why wasn't I notified prior if the arrived early enough. NO ONE MENTIONED IT OR APOLOGIZED IT BEFORE, DURING OR AFTER THE RECEPTION. And if you offered pictures of food temperature, I have never received any and I would like to see the date, time and how I would know it was at my venue. My family and friends are still saying the best thing that came out of your service was the doughnuts...

This was our second time at Smoke and Donuts, and it was just as good as the first time. We got there around 11 am, and there was plenty of parking right by the front door.

Since this was our first time having the brunch there, we tried to each order something different to compare notes among the four of us. The two pictures are for the sliced, marbled Brisket Eggs Benedict and the Pork Belly Breakfast Bowl over grits and gravy.

Of course you have to try their freshly made donuts, but remember that free donuts come with most meals so just keep that in mind. It's still fun to try their specialty donuts. Pictures are the chocolate cocoa donut and plain naked donuts.

About the food: delicious! I had the pork belly breakfast bowl, and the pork belly was tender and flavorful, but the grits were probably the best grits I've ever had. The combination of the eggs over-easy with the savory pickled veggies, and the grits and gravy, and the sweet spiciness of the pork belly was just incredible.

My wife had the brisket eggs Benedict and she let me have quite a bit of it. She was concerned she might not like it that much because she's not a big fan of bad hollandaise sauce, but that was exactly what she could not stop talking about. It was a really good hollandaise. The eggs were perfectly cooked, the brisket so flavorful. You can order the brisket lean too, but we tried the marbled version.

Our group also tried the chopped brisket with pancake (it was like four donuts!), and the pulled pork breakfast bowl, which also looked amazing. Everyone was happy with their meal.

I have to finish with the delightful cappuccinos that my wife describes as frothy and flavorful. We remembered that they were good from our last visit, and they were as good as we remembered. The perfect compliment to the fresh donuts that have that crusty outside with the spongy middle that soaks up the coffee so good.

The parking lot in front does seemed to need some TLC, but it's still well worth it. The staff is always so friendly and our reserved table had an adorable little placard with our name. The chef proudly came to ask about our meal, and his manner really shows you why everyone is so friendly and accommodating.

We will definitely be back, even though it is almost an hour away for us. Well worth it if you enjoy good...