The Art of Low & Slow: Saw & Brittany Naing on Joplin's, The Dutchess & Second Acts

Meet Saw and Brittany Naing, the husband-and-wife team powering Ojai’s rock-and-roll barbecue joint Joplin’s — and the culinary force many locals already know from The Dutchess. Saw grew up in Myanmar under military rule, fronting a heavy-metal band whose politically charged lyrics earned him unwelcome attention from the junta before he emigrated to Los Angeles in 2007.Los Angeles Times+1 In California kitchens he traded guitar amps for grill grates, cooking everywhere from Bouchon and Café Pinot to Tallula’s in Santa Monica before finally landing in Ojai as chef-partner at The Dutchess, where he cooks a deeply personal Burmese-Indian-meets-California menu.Ojai Food and Wine+1Brittany came up through the music world too, running an online music publication, De La Vie TV, before moving into restaurants, eventually becoming beverage director at The Dutchess and creating Namari, a cult-favorite non-alcoholic amaro.Namari+3Joplin's+3Podbay+3 Together they dreamed up Joplin’s — named for the dog who adopted them during the pandemic — a “food, drinks, rock & roll” roadhouse on East Ojai Avenue where Texas-style barbecue picks up Burmese and Indian accents, local meat and produce, and a seriously dialed-in playlist.Eater LA+4Joplin's+4Los Angeles Times+4In this episode we talk about Saw’s journey from Rangoon stages to Ojai smokers, Brittany’s path from showrunner to beverage innovator, the near-miss rock-and-roll pop-up that Covid canceled, and how they’ve poured every second act of their lives into Joplin’s and The Dutchess. It’s a conversation about risk, reinvention, and what happens when you take “low and slow” as a life philosophy, not just a way to cook ribs.We did not talk about whether Limp Bizkit is actually nu-metal, cloning polo ponies or the consequences of the Foreign Plot on the French Revolution. To learn more about Saw & Brittany, check ot https://www.joplinsojai.com