Houston’s hot, crispy fried chicken revival
The Bayou City is embracing the comfort food with some unique twists
When it comes to fried chicken, there is such a thing as gilding the lily.
It happened to chef Ryan Hildebrand when he opened FM Kitchen & Bar last year. In his zeal to present a thoroughly luxurious plate of fried chicken, he used his background as a saucier and created a complicated, multistep process for a dish that, while good, didn’t leave him or his business partner particularly enthralled.
“It’s not making me miss my grandma,” partner Chong Yi told him. So Hildebrand went back to the kitchen and streamlined the recipe for a simpler, more nostalgic version — adios, powdered jalapeño — that’s now on the menu at FM.
“Quality is still at the forefront, but simplicity and comfort are more of a component than they used to be,” Hildebrand said. “Now it’s the way fried chicken should make you feel.”
And there seems to be a lot of that feeling going around town. Houston is
having a fried chicken moment. Longtime favorites such as Frenchy’s, Barbecue Inn and Max’s Wine Dive remain strong, and they have been joined by a new wave of purveyors including Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken, the Memphis, Tenn., import that set up shop on the Washington corridor. Even restaurants that didn’t previously serve the dish are putting their spin on one of the country’s ultimate comfort foods, which will be “officially” celebrated on National Fried Chicken Day, July 6.
The Hay Merchant in Montrose began offering fried chicken dinner at 5 p.m. on Sundays in recent months. Chef/owner Chris Shepherd calls it a heaping helping of comfort that gets you ready for the workweek. The chicken is brined on Saturday with salt, sugar, thyme, lemon and garlic then dredged in seasoned flour to order and deep-fried.
“Fried chicken is one of those things that you’ve got to be in it to win it,” Shepherd said. “It’s a lot of work.” But worth it, he added: “What’s wrong with something crunchy and seasoned and soft and flavorful and moist? It’s got everything.”
At new Poitin restaurant in Sawyer Yards, chef Dominick Lee us doing an upscale fried chicken dish he’s calling, incongruously, Peasant Chicken. It starts off in a Dijon mustard marinade with tarragon and is dredged in house-made bread crumbs with caraway seeds and Herbes de Provence and then pan fried in oil that includes leaf lard (the soft fat from around the kidneys of a pig) for extra flavor.
Kenny & Ziggy’s owner Ziggy Gruber serves his with mashed potatoes, grilled corn, cole slaw and Mexican honey on the side by request. The chicken is marinated in spices then fully cooked by poaching in chicken soup. It is then rolled in matzoh meal and deep fried. He calls it traditional kosher deli-style fried chicken that has a lot of crunch. It will only be available for the next few months because, Gruber said, “summer is fried chicken season.”
At Beaver’s on Westheimer, chef Arash Kharat is injecting a bit of barbecue know-how into his Smoked Fried Chicken, offered on Thursdays for lunch. Liberty Kitchen at the Treehouse in Memorial and Liberty Kitchen & Oyster Bar in the Heights set aside Wednesdays for its Original Dixie Fried Chicken, an all-natural chicken that bathes in brine Monday and Tuesday. It’s served with cream gravy, hot sauce syrup, cole slaw and mashed potatoes. At Relish in River Oaks, customers must allow 15 minutes for the cooked-to-order fried chicken that comes with hot honey, bacon-braised collard greens and a rosemary biscuit. Dish Society restaurants starts serving fried chicken in the morning on house-made buttermilk biscuits topped with creamy house gravy.
Fried chicken is front and center on the dinner menu at Killen’s Barbecue in Pearland, and it’s also available at Killen’s STQ in Houston. Chef/owner Ronnie Killen’s love of fried chicken goes back to his grandmother who would spend Saturday cleaning and preparing chicken for Sunday’s fried chicken dinner. His recipe stretches back to those familial roots, too.
Even longtime fans of fancy Tony’s may not know that for three decades Tony Vallone has offered fried chicken by request with advance notice required. His organic hen meat enjoys a twoday buttermilk marinade before hitting the hot oil. The same preparation is employed at Vallone’s steakhouse only on Fridays for lunch, served with mashed potatoes and a house-made biscuit. It sells out every week. At Vallone’s Ciao Bello, fried chicken takes an Italian spin for Sunday brunch; it’s sprinkled with porcini mushroom dust and served with sage-infused honey.
“Fried chicken has had many revivals,” said chef Brandi Key, culinary director of Lasco Enterprises restaurants, including fried-chicken stalwart Max’s Wine Dive. “It’s a nostalgic thing. It’s one of those foods everyone wants.”
When restaurateur Marcus Davis opened The Breakfast Klub in Midtown in 2001, Houston hadn’t yet caught on to the fried chicken and waffles craze. Today, the line of customers waiting for his classic wings and waffles still stretches outside the restaurant’s front door, and the dish was a driving force behind the brand expanding to George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
But don’t go to Davis’ newest restaurant, Kulture, at Avenida Houston downtown, expecting golden wings like those that made The Breakfast Klub famous. No, executive chef Dawn Burrell has created what might be Houston’s most deluxe example of fried chicken.
To begin with, it’s not called chicken but poussin (a young chicken less than 28 days old). That bird is bathed in buttermilk flavored in chile paste and ground allspice, then dredged in chickpea flour and deep fried in canola oil. It is served in a shallow pool of seafood cream sauce and studded with crawfish popovers and a flurry of celery and zucchini salad.
Davis said for decades talented African American chefs like Burrell, formerly of Uchi, wouldn’t go near fried chicken for fear of being labeled as a strictly a soul-food chef.
“It put them in a box of only being able to do that kind of food,” Davis said.
These days, he said, “everyone wants to showcase their ability to do fried chicken.”