The Famous Chef Who Popularized Clothesline Bacon

Clothesline Bacon: It's not new, and it doesn't seem likely to disappear anytime soon. This whimsical culinary creation involves hanging strips of bacon, secured by clothespins, from a small clothesline or wire and then blasting the bacon goodness across the surface with a butane culinary torch. While multiple chefs have tried various iterations of Clothesline Bacon, Clothesline Candied Bacon, or pickle-centric Clothesline Bacon — where the drippings land directly on a pickle — rest assured there is only one chef credited with popularizing this dish: Chef David Burke.

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Burke is renowned for his innovative cuisine and his jollification of everyday cooking. The restaurateur even conjured a sous chef during the COVID-19 pandemic — a puppet named Lefto. But for all his jocularity, Burke is a professional who operates more than 15 restaurants, eight of which he opened during the pandemic. The James Beard Award-winner, who was executive chef of New York City's River Café at age 26, has had stints as a celebrity chef, received numerous awards of excellence, and garnered several U.S. patents for his culinary innovations, including a dry-aging process for beef that utilizes pink Himalayan salt.

Some of Burke's other signature dishes include gourmet cheesecake lollipops, pastrami smoked salmon, Angry Lobster, and Hipster Fries. Yet, of all these, Burke's Clothesline Bacon has delighted diners and home cooks alike — and it's a staple on the menu in most of his restaurants. Burke has showcased his Clothesline Bacon in countless social media posts and cooking demos, and it's that process that makes this dish such a showstopper.

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The making of Clothesline Bacon

In an exclusive interview with Mashed in 2021, Burke revealed that Clothesline Bacon was inspired by another of his ideas involving duck and dried fruit. The chef was attempting to quickly dry out the fruit, and hung it on wooden laundry racks to do so. The duck soon followed, and, in a lightbulb moment, Burke decided since it had worked so well with duck and fruit, bacon would be even better. On one Instagram post, Burke noted that, "When creating the Clothesline Bacon, it was important for me to serve an experience for all of the senses."

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For this dish, Burke takes high-quality, thick-cut bacon and bakes it in the oven with a black pepper and maple glaze. The bacon strips are then hung on a small clothesline with clothespins, served over a whole pickle, and torched tableside. The last-minute firing of the bacon allows for all the juices and glaze to slowly drip down onto the pickle in a delightful, syrupy trickle. Diners are provided with scissors and encouraged to use a clothespin to clip the bacon strip and cut it into manageable, bite-sized pieces.

Clothesline Bacon is served as a starter in restaurants like Burke's Red Salt Room, and while the concept isn't terribly complicated, the presentation is what makes the dish. Other restaurants have duplicated Clothesline Bacon — indeed, Candied Clothesline Bacon is available at Disney World. Of course, this dish can be made at home as well, using any candied bacon recipe, such as this maple-cinnamon candied bacon. No doubt, this is one delightful and fanciful dish that will impress your guests, courtesy of Chef David Burke.

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Static Media owns and operates Tasting Table and Mashed.

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