The 14 Best Places to Eat Chicken in NYC – New York

When it comes to culinary trends that don’t go away, fried chicken sandwiches are still in charge. But without fried chicken, there would be no fried chicken sandwiches, so let’s take a moment to appreciate the breadless chicken. NYC has an amazing variety of styles, from whole bone-in Southern-style drumsticks to crispy, glazed Korean chicken or Chino-Latino chicharron de pollo, which is basically just an excuse to stuff green sauce down your throat. For fried chicken so delicious it’s worth burning your fingers and destroying your taste buds, here are our favorite places.

The spots

As the name suggests, the chicken in this flagship store on 145th Street (with several others in Harlem and throughout the city) is cooked in a Tom and Jerry-sized frying pan. The jet-black pans look like they’ve been filled with hot oil for the last 40 years, cooking chicken that’s salty, juicy and — from contact with the hot metal — ultra-crispy. The chicken is seasoned to the bone, the skin isn’t too thick, and the outdoor seating is an excellent place to hang out on a weekend afternoon.

Bobwhite Counter has a simple proposition: convenience store quality at fast food prices. And they pull it off. The Avenue C shop is probably the best value in this guide (and reliably better than their Union Square shop). Two pieces of their perfectly crispy and super-juicy chicken with a biscuit costs $7.19, and for just under $10 extra you can add a serving of tenders (also great in a Caesar wrap), a biscuit, and an Arnold Palmer.

At Atoboy in Flatiron, you have to order the prix fixe menu for $75 to get the chicken as a side, which costs another $28. For exceptional Korean chicken, it’s worth every penny. You get a small bucket of chicken thighs and drumsticks with a thick and crispy crust, decorated with fried garlic chips. The meat on this chicken is so juicy that it belongs in a straw bag—not a single dry, stringy piece of breast meat to be found here. After the first naked bite, be sure to dip your chicken in the sides of the gochujang sauce and peanut sauce. Use this spot for a quiet meal with a group.

The salt and pepper chicken is a perfect example of Cantonese-American cuisine at Potluck Club, a casual but festive restaurant in Chinatown. The chicken is a fusion of Southern and Chinese cuisine: crispy, bubbly, salty, and our favorite item on the menu here. And the sweet-and-salty chili plum jam that comes with it makes our mouths water like one of Pavlov’s dogs every time we think about it. Did we mention the dish comes with a scallion biscuit?

The Thai-style chicken at Three Roosters is the Cheeto-like entry on this list: less juice, more pure, satisfying crunch. This little counter in Hell’s Kitchen serves each meal with a cup of game broth, rice, and some veggies, making it perfect for a filling lunch if you work in the area. You can get the chicken plain, but if you like it a little spicier, order the deep-fried zab variety. Sprinkled with toasted rice, makrut lime, and chili powder, it’ll be thirsty for a dip in their jaew sauce.

As the name suggests, this casual Taiwanese joint in Long Island City makes really tasty dumplings. The fried chicken is even more delicious. It’s incredibly juicy on the inside but so crispy on the outside that the sound of each bite echoes in your skull. The popcorn chicken, in particular, sprinkled with fried basil leaves, should be classified as a controlled substance (and you should go for the eight pieces). There are dips to choose from, including the signature basil aioli, which is also used to great effect in the fried chicken sandwich.

A summer night on the town is best spent outside Commodore on the corner of Havemeyer and Metropolitan in Williamsburg. Want to take it up a notch? Order the bar’s Southern chicken. It’s everything you’d expect from this style of fried poultry. It’s full of salty goodness in pickle brine and is worth scratching your palate with. Serve with a frozen cocktail. Commodore’s second location in the East Village they have the same chicken but no outdoor seating.

La Dinastia on the Upper West Side has a long menu of Chino-Latino classics (glossily seared pork chops, ropa vieja on a bed of fried rice), but we always get the same thing: the boneless chicken cracklings, which are tenderly crispy and salty enough to keep you coming back until your plate is empty. They’re served with your choice of side—we like the tostones or fried rice—and a lemon wedge for squeezing. Ask for the not-so-secret green sauce and order a rum-based nutcracker, even at lunch.

Yetnal Tongdak, a Korean eatery in Queens’ Murray Hill, serves a whole bird roasted without starch. And it changed our perspective on how crispy chicken skin can get without grainy aids. Even more impressive is the skin on their soy and garlic glazed wings. They’re subtly sweet and spicy, and the skin doesn’t lose any of its crust from soaking in the sauce. Come with a group and come hungry—you’ll want to try at least a few bites of everything here.

The coolest spot from the team behind Dhamaka And SemmaRowdy Rooster in the East Village has it all. The self-serve eatery is best known for its sandwiches, but you can also eat without the bun and choose the heat level yourself. Level one might have your whole body sweating. But heat level five is one of the cheapest ways to get a thrill in the city. The chicken is coated in a volcanically hot marinade that will stain your fingers for days and burn your insides too—though it’s not lacking in flavor, with recognizable nuances of various chilies in the powder. The only way we can cool down is with a big gulp of their mango lassi.

Harlem has several Soul food Institutions, and Amy Ruth’s, a casual spot on 116th Street filled with murals of famous customers, is our favorite place for fried chicken. The favorite combination here is “President Barack Obama”: two drumsticks (drumstick and thigh) and two sides. Their chicken is lightly floured and lightly flavored, but still crisp. Order it with their macaroni and cheese and some sweet collard greens, or over a fluffy waffle. The restaurant is perfect for a big family meal.

While it’s easy to write off Coqodaq because of the zombie-apocalypse TikTok plague with their caviar-topped chicken nugget, the bone-in Korean chicken at this Flatiron restaurant is actually very good. Ignore the nugget and order the “Bucket List” for $38 per person. You’ll get two rounds of buffalo chunks—first plain, then glazed with your choice of gochujang or soy-garlic sauce (we prefer soy-garlic). A few sides and frozen yogurt are included. If you want a fancy cocktail or champagne to go with your fried meal, this is the place to go.

They’ve opened quite a few restaurants in the last few years with slightly different concepts, but Blue Ribbon Brasserie still makes damn good chicken. You can get it from them Roast chicken spot in the East Village, but it is something special to sit here, in one of Soho’s most picturesque Restaurants and singing your fingers on freshly fried chicken is just something special. Plus, we love the collard greens served under the clucker. Come here late at night (the restaurant is open until 2 a.m.), start with some oysters, and eat fried chicken by 11 p.m.

This Park Slope restaurant started as a wildly popular delivery service, mixing Chinese and Nashville-spicy flavors on its chili chicken. The signature fried chicken at their counter-service stand features juicy, almost silky meat encased in a crust that shatters like a dropped glass in an empty bar. The spice-dusted Sichuan chicken from Tennessee isn’t to be sniffed at either. Round out your order with some finely tuned sides that incorporate seasonal produce, like a roasted cucumber salad. Come here before attending an event at the Barclays Center, or grab some to-go before a picnic in Prospect Park.