Swig & Swine’s Anthony DiBernardo has a whole lot cookin’ right now
by Lorne Chambers | News Editor
It’s somewhere around midnight, and although mid-June, it’s still rather chilly in northern Idaho after the sun goes down. The first full moon of the summer, named the Strawberry Moon by Native American tribes, is still a few nights away. But there’s already enough moonlight to illuminate the massive grand firs that stretch hundreds of feet into the heavens where they are met by a billion stars.
From a giant chimney stack on the edge of the property, Anthony DiBernardo carefully carries shovelfuls of hot coals over to a make-shift smoker pit he constructed himself days before out of cinderblock, rebar, and sheets of corrugated metal roofing. He’s methodical, pausing only for a moment when he hears the high-pitched yips of coyotes just beyond the pine curtain.
DiBernardo is in his element.
Two large heritage-breed hogs from nearby Belmont Farms sit atop the grates as he shovels fresh hot coals under them. The animals are so big he had them cut in half just to fit them in the pit. After tending to the hogs, DiBernardo throws a few logs into a rotisserie smoker nearby where nearly 100 slabs of ribs slowly rotate. He still needs to make up the corn pudding for tomorrow. The coleslaw can wait until morning.
Happy being the overnight cook for this festival, DiBernardo sends his helpers back to their hotel rooms to get a good night’s sleep while he personally mans the fires throughout the night. He knows tomorrow he will need his crew fully rested to serve the 800-plus people coming from all over the Pacific Northwest to tiny Coeur d’Alene (pronounced kore-duh-LANE) for the annual From the Ashes Idaho, a smoked and fired foods festival he helped found four years ago.
Back home in Charleston, DiBernardo is the larger-than-life owner and pitmaster of Swig & Swine, which first opened in West Ashley seven years ago and has since grown to three locations with a fourth on the way.
“The only negative to running a business like Swig & Swine is that you get caught up in the day-to-day business-side of things and you kind of miss out on what lit your fire to begin with,” says DiBernardo. “I don’t always get to cook anymore. So when I get a chance to do it at festivals, I take it. It reignites the fire and passion I have for cooking and the passion I have for barbecue.”
By the time the gates open the next day, the crowds immediately flock to the Swig & Swine tent. Although DiBernardo is running on almost no sleep, he’s all smiles. He loves this part, greeting the eager festival goers who are anxious to try some authentic southern barbecue.
“The biggest thing for me about doing this festival is the people. It’s just a whole other clientele out there. Because they don’t get barbecue on the regular, they’re extremely grateful to have it,” he says.
From the Ashes Idaho co-founder Wendi Haught met DiBernardo years earlier at a Certified Angus Beef event in Nashville. The two built a strong friendship over the years and she eventually convinced him to help her start a barbecue festival in Coeur d’Alene. Haught lives in a neighboring town. DiBernardo’s sister also lives relatively close by, so it’s a trip he cherishes and makes time for every year, even with an ever-expanding barbecue empire back in Charleston.
“Having collaborated with Anthony over the past four years, it is incredible to witness what a force of nature he is when it comes to weaving in his creativity and community-minded approach to everything he touches,” says Haught. “And he makes some good barbecue, of course.”
With another successful From the Ashes Idaho underway and his well-rested crew slinging whole hog barbecue, pork spareribs, corn pudding, coleslaw, and cracklins to the hungry crowd, DiBernardo finally has a chance to sit down for a breather.
But the crowd is loving the food so much that almost as soon as he sits, DiBernardo has to get back up to pull more pork from the last half-hog still on the pit.
He mops it with a healthy dose of vinegar sauce, then takes a large handful of the tender meat from the butt (just above the front shoulder) and a large handful from the ham (back leg), mixing it all together in the flavorful belly fat in the middle before putting it in a serving pan. While he’s doing this, Chris Varela, the third co-founder of the festival, along with DiBernardo and Haught, walks over to chat and try the pork.
“You’re starting to move like an old man,” says Varela, ribbing DiBernardo, who’s understandably moving a little gingerly after constructing a cinderblock smoke pit by hand and then staying up all night shoveling coals with little-to-no sleep.
“No, I’m fine,” says DiBernardo. “I just stood up. I was sitting down resting for a minute.”
“Yeah, you can’t do that,” says Varela dryly. A fellow workaholic, Varela is the owner of Settler’s Creek, the property where the festival is being held.
DiBernardo, who will turn 50 next year, laughs. Resting isn’t something he’s done much of as of late. In just the last several months alone, DiBernardo has continued to guide three restaurants through a pandemic, get married, and travel all over the country to cook and spread the gospel of barbecue. He’s also in the process of opening a forth Swig & Swine location, and is helping bring a world-class barbecue festival to Charleston in November.
After returning from Idaho, which was on the heels of a huge Hogs for the Cause event in New Orleans along with Home Team BBQ and Rodney Scott’s BBQ, DiBernardo was heading out again, this time to New York City to appear on a Fourth of July special for the popular morning show Fox & Friends.
Long before Swig & Swine, DiBernardo was in the U.S. Navy. For months at a time, he would prepare four meals a day for 130 sailors out of an 8’x8’ galley aboard a Sturgeon-class submarine hundreds of feet below the water. So when Fox & Friends was looking for a veteran chef to be featured for the Fourth of July, DiBernardo got the call.
It was while on the nationally-televised show that DiBernardo announced he would soon be opening a fourth Swig & Swine location, this one in the Monks Corner area.
Shortly after his New York trip and national TV appearance, DiBernardo was off yet again, this time to Chicago to cook at the Windy City Smokeout along with friend and fellow Charleston pitmaster Rodney Scott.
Scott, who won the 2018 James Beard award for Best Chef—Southeast, and a host of other pitmasters from Charleston and around the country are signed on to participate in Holy Smokes BBQ Festival on Nov. 13 at The Bend, just over the Northbridge along the Ashley River. The festival was created by DiBernardo, Aaron Siegel and Taylor Garrigan of Home Team BBQ, and Robert Moss, contributing barbecue editor for Southern Living.
Holy Smokes will be the first of its kind for Charleston and will raise awareness and funds for families affected by pediatric brain cancer right here in Charleston through donations to Hogs for the Cause. It’s this sort of tireless work ethic and dedication to giving back to the community that has garnered DiBernardo the respect of his fellow pitmasters, despite being competitors.
“There’s no argument that Anthony has made an impact in the local barbecue community,” says Michael Bessinger of Bessinger’s Barbeque in West Ashley, who will also be a part of Holy Smokes. “He’s accomplished so much in such a little amount of time. It’s rare.”
Home Team BBQ’s Siegel was also complimentary of DiBernardo. “I’m proud of his success and proud to be his friend. He’s one of the better guys in our industry,” says Siegel. “He’s a great example of someone who had an idea and really took the ball and ran with it and created a life for himself and is living his dream.”
