My wife's grand mother had a wood fired cooker in the house I do not mean a wood cook stove but a dang grill in the house it was on the side of the kitchen. It was build in to the wall had a seperate stack as well.The problem was it would never draft well. Just seeing if someone had perfected it and got it to draft?
I used to go to a steakhouse now and then that has a charcoal grill in the middle of the restaurant. It has a giant hood over it that sucks out the fumes. It is a cook-your-own place, and it was pretty amazing, by the way. I could see something like that working, but probably not with wood. Lump charcoal with some wood chips, maybe.
I got to eat at one of them last year in U.P. Called herefords and hoops or something close to it. That was a cool place.
I used to go to a one of those in Va...Seemed cool to stand around it and drink and grill, then I realized I was paying a premium to cook my own meal!!
Butcher shop Steak House in Dallas is like that. I had to pay the chef a few extra bucks to cook my fillet to perfection.
Building codes would poo-poo it around here, but that would be incredible. Maybe in an open fireplace with a cast pan is as close to the real thing.
One house I had looked into buying back in the 80's had a built in grill incorporated into the fireplace chimney with it's own separate doors. Although the actual grill was pretty much nothing more than a cooking grate, you would still have the food you wanted with the grilled taste anytime during the winter without battling the outdoors. Unique.
