Except for vegetarians and perhaps the hyperlipidemic, fried chicken is beloved nearly universally. And that’s a universe that includes some pretty discriminating palates—many of whom seem to prefer Popeyes over anything else. Anthony Bourdain was a vocal fan. Celebrity chefs like David Chang and Hugh Acheson sing its praises. The fried chicken experts MUNCHIES spoke to had plenty of compliments, too.
“Popeyes has great fried chicken,” says James Beard Award-winning chef Ashley Christensen. “I like the level of salt in the chicken. They push it just enough. It’s got a touch of spice to it. The meat is super juicy.”
Whether it’s a Michelin-rated kitchen or a hole-in-the-wall local legend, few can match Popeyes’s bird. Which is why some don’t even try: Last year, a Long Beach restaurant was busted for serving Popeyes chicken and ostensibly passing it off as its own. Poultry fraud is tough to defend, but this particular culinary con speaks to how Popeyes punches above its weight class in terms of quality.
Popeyes is an industrial anomaly. In virtually all other cases, mass production seems to be bad for food quality. Every sort of fast food has its devotees, but if you’re after a burger, a burrito, or a salad, the fast food version is usually a cheap approximation of what you can find in a nicer restaurant (or even what you could make yourself). Big Macs might be delicious and crave-able, but they're unlikely to land on any Best of Burgers lists. When it comes to fried chicken, though, disappointment is more likely to come on a fresh white tablecloth than in a grease-stained paperboard box.
J. Kenji López-Alt, another Beard Award-winner, goes even further. He claimed that Popeyes is the best fried chicken anywhere you can get it. (In response to the Washington Post food critic putting Popeyes on the list of the best fried chicken in D.C.)
For López-Alt, it’s the skin that stands out. “They have the crust down perfect,” he tells MUNCHIES. “The right level of craggliness. Very salty. High surface area. They get crispy all over. There aren’t any soggy spots.” He also highlighted what his Serious Eats colleague calls “the cosmic oneness between breading and skin,” such that the breading doesn’t slide off and leave you with a flabby layer of naked skin.
In many ways, fried chicken seems antithetical to mass production. It’s a food that requires levels of finesse and expertise that take decades to cultivate, not to mention that it’s often associated with the accrued family secrets of intergenerational R&D. One of those a-lifetime-to-master things. Fast food kitchens, on the other hand, are synonymous with constant staff turnover and a general deskilling of labor. The whole concept is based on the idea that any can do it.
So why is the fried chicken at 3,000 different Popeyes locations better than what so many accomplished chefs can produce either in their high-end kitchens or at home?
by Adam Clair, Vice | Read more:
Image: Adam Waito
