What now for built-in barbecues?

Sunset, May, 1988

What now for built-in barbecues?

Move over, steaks, chicken legs, and hamburgers! They've had the barbecue pretty much to themselves all this time, but a whole new set of smoky aromas is wafting from barbecue centers. It's time to make way for pizza, stir-fry, and smoked salmon. Traditional grills still play big parts in the four barbecue areas pictured here, but surrounding masonry units also incorporate built-in smokers, commercial woks, pizza ovens, or cantilevered counters where guests can watch the food being prepared and then enjoy it hot off the grill.

These centers are the focal points for outdoor entertaining. They're big, bold, permanent structures designed for dedicated back-yard chefs. Even the smallest example, the built-in wok counter, is almost 8 feet long.

The largest (far left) is part of a 30-foot-long counter that wraps around one end of a deck; in its center stands a brick fireplace with a Chinese smoker oven next to it. Owners Karen and Paul Taylor build a fire in the small chamber behind the cast-iron door, and the heated air is drawn into the 22-inch-square chimney hidden inside the brick surround of the big fireplace. The Taylors can let a slow-burning briquet and wood-chip fire smoke salmon, or let a much hotter fire roast vertically suspended duck or pork. (Centuries of experience have taught Chinese chefs that placing the meat so it is not directly over a fire cooks it more evenly.)

Southern California landscape designer Nick Williams developed the other three elaborate centers shown here as parts of back-yard garden remodels. As he puts it, "We want to give our clients as many reasons as possible to go out in their gardens-- and isn't it great to be able to cook something outside that's normally prepared inside?"

Photo: Chinese-style smoker oven

Oven fits in a separate chimney between the large patio-warming fireplace and the smaller firebox. He's lowering brined salmon down into the oven, where it will smoke slowly at low heat (160| to 180|). Designed by Seattle landscape archietect Thomas Berger, the oven also has a gas jet to raise temperatures enough to roast a duck or Chinese-style pork

Photo: June 1931: "All the world likes to return to the primitive at times. In most cases, this return takes the form of cooking and eating a meal outdoors." The barbecue's evolved since the days of knickers and neckties, but its uses haven't really changed

Photo: An area made for wok-ing

East meets West: Chris and Mary Anne Lee's flagstone barbecue center has both commercial, gas-fired wok and hooded grill. A covered lid protects the wok when it's not in use

Photo: Sit-down counter

Tiled surface forms one leg of U-shaped outdoor kitchen that contains commercial gas grill, refrigerator, and sink at Jeff Balash's Beverly Hills home

Photo: Brick-lined pizza oven

Part of barbecue-center lineup, it lets Shelly and Stephen Hamile work outdoors when they cook the pizza they love. Oven contains a 21- by 29-inch steel plate over gas jets. Inside face of its wooden door is insulated. The C-shaped tiled counter wraps around a lowered center area