Smokin’!

The front inside wall of Gadberry’s is the most amazing thing, a life-size, pale-green plaster frieze of a forest scene that includes finely wrought 3-D leaves, singing birds, and a textured brown tree trunk that extends down to include most of an employee’s entrance. The sylvan effect is almost enough to make you forget that you are in fact standing in a bare, harshly lit lobby, the only furniture a couple of ashtrays, the tile floor scrubbed clean, in a part of town not known for trees at all. That wall is kind of the Ghiberti doors of early-’50s barbecue kitsch. (The Bear Pit, a mediocre Ozark-style barbecue joint in Mission Hills, is barbecue’s Sistine Chapel.) Customers pace back and forth as if they were expectant fathers outside a maternity ward. Anticipation of great spareribs can make a person feel that way. Gadberry’s has been in business since 1953.

Gadberry’s, smart money as the best barbecue pit in Los Angeles, occupies a small building set back from the street, just south of Slauson and a couple of miles south of the Coliseum. It’s easy to miss as you rocket south on Broadway. It’s also only a short drive from one of the city’s best R&B; lounges, Carl’s Dodger Club, where for 3 bucks you can stop by for a Saturday-night set or two from Chu Chu and the Lovely Band--marcels; spangles; two blind percussionists!--who have a funky way with ‘70s soul ballads. Gadberry’s and the Dodger Club: an evening to remember.

Smack in the center of Gadberry’s forest is the take-out window, through which you can see great expanses of black, galvanized steel--steel, white bread and a guy hacking at spareribs with a big knife.

The place is takeout only, enforced to the extent that there are no tables or chairs. A good barbecue place generally perfumes a neighborhood for blocks around, but at Gadberry’s--which is better than good--the woodsmoke barely makes it into the “dining” room. Maybe it all goes into the meat.

Barbecue stands have never been noted for the encyclopedic breadth of their menus, and Gadberry’s takes restaurant minimalism to an extreme: meat; beans; potato salad.

Pork spareribs are meaty, smoky, red right through to the bone as if they have been cured, and are as intensely flavored as a Virginia ham. Their texture, though not as crisp as some, is also not unlike that of a dense country ham, and they seem to be some of the leanest ribs around. They are plenty big.

Links are big, coarse-ground things, crisp on the outside and chewy within. These sausages are spiced heavily enough to leave the illusion of an almost chemical-pure aftertaste, the kind of thing you find sometimes in B-B-Q potato chips or huge, tannic young Napa Pinot Noirs. Some people might find a Gadberry’s link too powerful to actually eat, the same people who turn up their noses at properly pungent Thai yen ta fo or good runny sheepcheese from France. Actually, the dense links served at Mom’s, on Imperial Highway, may be a little better, but Gadberry’s are right up there.

Beef might be the best thing, profoundly smoky sliced brisket that’s crusted with black, marbled with fat, moist and dripping with juice. It’s the sort of Texas-style barbecue all those places in the Valley tell you they make, but don’t.

Strictly speaking, Gadberry’s meat needs no sauce. The sauce, though, is fine, faintly tart, not too sweet. The pepper heat comes on as a glow, works its way up to a slow burn and then gracefully diminishes . . . the time-tested arch form that’s found in both the best barbecue sauces and the best Brahms adagios. The sauce is almost too elegant for Gadberry’s powerful smoking. It is, however, the kind of sauce that will stay under your fingernails for three days, no matter how often you wash your hands.

Gadberry’s Bar-B-Q, 5833 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, (213) 751-0753. Open Tuesday-Sunday, noon to 10 p.m., Friday-Saturday until 1 a.m. Cash only. Takeout only. No alcohol. Dinner for two, food only, $9-$17.80.