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    Best Fried Chicken

    Just wing it: Best fried chicken in Houston comes in many different varieties

    Davon D.E. Hatchett
    Jul 6, 2013 | 10:00 am

    Nestled quietly between the 4th of July and Bastille Day is a much lesser known holiday that, in my food-appreciating opinion, deserves some serious recognition: Today is National Fried Chicken Day.

    Although fried chicken is often thought of as a quintessentially Southern dish, it actually dates back to Europe during medieval times, with Scottish immigrants being credited with introducing the method of deep frying chicken in fat to the Southern states.

    Houston’s food scene has a well-established reputation for being a wonderful gastronomic melting pot though, which means that you can get fried chicken served up in a myriad of ways to satisfy any ethnic palate. There’s twice fried Korean fried chicken flavored with ganjang sauce and garlic; Indian fried chicken marinated in yogurt masala and coated with chickpea flour (the Tuesday special at Pondicheri); and even garlic and zataar laden Middle Eastern fried chicken (at Al Aseel Grill & Café).

    Our eclectic city even has great Szechuan, Guatemalan and Malaysian fried fowl to satisfy even the most intense culturally-fueled fried chicken predilections.

    Salivating yet? Good. Now wipe your mouth and check out some of the best local spots to satiate your sudden fried chicken cravings:

    Barbecue Inn

    Crowned by Food & Wine magazine as one the country’s preeminent purveyors of poultry, the Barbecue Inn only serves up chicken that is cooked to order and worth the wait: once-battered chicken, seasoned just so, with perfectly crispy skin.

    The cooks at the Barbecue Inn have been frying chicken in that kitchen for decades. With additional accolades from publications like Texas Monthly, the restaurant clearly has a strong following.

    Max’s Wine Dive

    Long known for advocating that champagne and fried chicken are a match made in culinary heaven, Max’s now has another tasty offering up their sleeves: “gluten-friendly” fried chicken that is just as delicious as the original.

    The idea, which came from Jerry Lasco, president of Max's present company Lasco Enterprises, who has Celiac disease, is made with a blend of gluten free flour and dried cauliflower fibers, creating a fried-like coating. The chicken is also cooked in a separate fryer and prepared in an independent area, which prevents exposing the chicken to other foods that contain gluten. Way to go, Max’s!

    Liberty Kitchen & Oyster Bar

    It’s clear that the folks at Liberty take their Southern fried chicken seriously since they named the dish “Dixie Fried Chicken.” Better still, it’s served with proper Southern-style accompaniments: cream gravy and hot sauce syrup. Although it’s typically a Wednesday special, the restaurant will be selling cold Dixie on National Fried Chicken Day. It can be eaten there or taken to go, perhaps for a little picnic.

    Haven

    Chef Randy Evans wants you to have your chicken and eat it too. The restaurant offers its incredibly tender and moist organic, free-range, buttermilk-marinated fried chicken dinner for four, complete with your choice of decadent sides, both in the restaurant as well as for curbside pick-up. Come to think of it, you could actually pick up the meal secretly, tie on an apron, dust yourself with a little flour, invite people over, and pretend you cooked it yourself. Your guests will rave over the deliciousness, and it’ll be just your and Chef Evans’ secret.

    Eleven XI

    Chef Kevin Bryant of the new Eleven XI restaurant wants to prove his frying mettle right out of the gate. The restaurant offers a “Citrus Tea Brined Wild Game Hen” on the menu that’s fried…whole. The unique brining concoction makes the meat superbly luscious and moist, while the skin retains a good, solid crustiness.

    Seeing that whole, small, fried-to-perfection hen, resting precariously atop a mound of French fries is a gorgeous sight. It’s a single serving, but even if it weren’t you still wouldn’t want to share.

    Frenchy’s

    Can a fried chicken list for Houston be truly complete without including Frenchy’s? Serving its customers fantastic fried Creole poulet has been the mission of this neighborhood institution since 1969. If you’ve never eaten at Frenchy’s (gasp!) you don’t know what you are missing. The spice blend that the Creuzot family uses on their chicken is the stuff that flavor legends are made of.

    ------

    Looking for more choices? Check out Marene Gustin's column on best fried chicken that ran in 2011 and see if your favorite is on the list. If you have others, let us know in the comments section below.

    Haven offers organic, free-range, buttermilk-marinated fried chicken.

    Haven fried chicken mashed potatoes greens rolls and gravy
      
    Photo by Paula Murphy
    Haven offers organic, free-range, buttermilk-marinated fried chicken.
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    he finished the job

    Houston chef Tristen Epps dishes on his Top Chef victory — and what's next

    Eric Sandler
    Jun 13, 2025 | 9:05 am
    Top Chef Tristen Epps
    Photo by David Moir/Bravo
    Kristen Kish, Tristen Epps, Gail Simmons, and Tom Colicchio.

    Houston has played a leading role in America’s culinary scene, but the city has never been home to a Top Chef winner — until last night. In the final episode of season 22, chef Tristen Epps earned the title and a $250,000 cash prize.

    Epps secured his victory by remaining true to the Afro-Caribbean cuisine that helped him secured an impressive four Elimination Challenge wins and $35,000 in additional prize money from two Quickfire wins and as a member of the team that won the show’s signature Restaurant Wars challenge. His four-course menu took a panel of celebrity judges on a journey that also referenced the finale location of Milan, Italy.

    In particular, Epps wowed the panel with his second course — Chicken “Durango” with injera shrimp toast and shellfish jus — that referenced both the Ethiopian chicken stew doro wat and the Italian dish pollo durango, a sly nod to the history of imperialism between the two countries. He finished his savory offerings with Oxtail Milanese Crepinette with Carolina Gold rice grits, curry butter, and bone marrow gremolata, which earned praised from the panel.

    “Historically, we’ve been underserved oxtail,” Top Chef alum and James Beard Award winner Gregory Gourdet said during the episode. “Tristen took the time to pull it, create that beautiful, huge, maybe too big, portion of oxtail. And cover it with that gremolata. He did not forget the bone marrow. That’s very, very smart.”

    Throughout Top Chef’s run, Epps has been holding a series of pop-ups devoted to everything from hot dogs to steakhouses. Now, he can turn his attention to Buboy, a tasting menu concept that will celebrate the Afro-Caribbean cuisine he championed throughout his time on the show.

    CultureMap caught up with Epps on Friday morning for a brief chat about his victory and what’s next.

    CultureMap: What do you remember from the day you cooked that final dinner?
    Tristen Epps: It was an extreme amount of focus. A lot of writing in my notebook. I didn’t want to laugh. I didn’t want to cry or do anything except finish the job, regardless of whatever the outcome would have been. I remember wanting to call my mom. I really wanted to talk things out so I could calm myself down and stay within my focus. Once I got into cooking, I felt so much at ease. It’s my happy place. It’s my serenity.

    CM: How did you feel when you saw Gregory Gourdet on the panel? Did you feel like you had an advocate in the room?
    TE: I’ve cooked with gregory before, a long time ago. It was really fun. I loved what he was doing.

    I felt like I had kind of an advocate. I was worried my food wold be too spicy or too overpowering [for the European chefs]. Seeing Gregory was really good, especially with what I was doing.

    CM: Other chefs, including Gregory Gourdet and Houston chef Dawn Burrell, have done well on the show with Afro-Caribbean cuisine but they didn’t win. How important was it to you to finish the job and use those flavors to win the title?
    TE: To me that was super important. There’s adventurous people who make phenomenal food. They’ll go once because it’s interesting, bu they’re usually skeptical. When you don’t nail it, they say, that’s why I go to the regular places that are familiar.

    Finishing the job was really important to me. People have come up short on this. I wanted to get this right for everyone who’s made that step forward and created the ladder.

    CM: What have your last 12 hours been like since the episode aired? Have any celebrities reached out to you?
    TE: A lot of calls, a lot of good luck. A lot of everything. It’s been amazing.

    A lot of past Top Chef winners reached out to me, giving me a lot of support and telling me what they did after they won.

    [ESPN football commentator] Mina Kimes did, which was really cool.

    CM: What are your plans for the prize money?
    TE: It’s going to go to Buboy. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, it can go a little faster.

    CM: You’ve been holding a series of pop-ups that range from tasting menus to hot dogs? What’s next?
    TE: Part of getting the restaurant open has been introducing myself to all of Houston. These pop-ups represent my interests and my fun. They’re the things that Buboy is going to represent. It can be fun, it can be a conversation, it can be educational, it can push the limits of cuisines we know. It’s an expression of culture in whatever way I see fit that day.

    The hot dog concept will probably be a separate venture, but who’s to say there’s not a hot dog at the end of that meal?

    Top Chef Tristen Epps
      

    Photo by David Moir/Bravo

    Kristen Kish, Tristen Epps, Gail Simmons, and Tom Colicchio.

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