Food for Thought

The best fried chicken in Houston: Think champagne, not fast food

National Fried Chicken Day is July 6.
Max's Wine Dive has T-shirts with the slogan “Fried chicken and champagne, whythe hell not?” Seriously, why the hell not indulge in their combo?
Ziggy Gruber's South Bronx Fried Chicken
Photo by Marene Gustin

I once wrote that when I was very young and we didn’t have a lot of money, we could only afford to eat meat once a week, when Mom would make crispy fried chicken for Sunday supper after church.

I actually had to apologize to Dad for that because, technically, yes, sliced bologna is meat. Thanks for pointing that out Dad.

Anyway, Mom got her recipe from Grandma, who probably got it from her mother. My Dad remembers his Ma (his step grandmother) killing a chicken in their backyard for special occasions and frying it up.

“Fried chicken was a big deal,” he says.

Fried chicken was a staple in the South, still is, but as I grew up I got away from eating it. First, because even though when I was a struggling twentysomething and loved me a cheap biscuit and a piece from Popeye’s, I eventually eschewed fast food because of the whole factory farm business and how it grew from the fast food industry to destroy the family farm, create Frankenstein animals that are horribly treated and slaughtered, and pollute our land and water.

Good fried chicken is heaven on earth when it’s hot right out of the kitchen, but the true test is if it’s still wonderful served cold the next day.

Scuse me, I’ll climb down off my soapbox now, but if you want the facts check out Nicolette Hahn Niman’s Righteous Porkchop. Yes, that Niman.

Anyhow, I quit eating fried chicken at fast food joints and didn’t make it myself because I’m not good with the whole hot oil thing. You know, burning yourself and setting off the smoke alarm.

But in light of National Fried Chicken Day on July 6 (what, it’s not on your calendar?) I’ve decided to get back to my roots and luckily Houston has some great places to eat real fried chicken.

First off, there’s the legendary Frenchy’s Chicken, not the franchises mind you, but the original one in the Third Ward. The spicy, Cajun, never greasy chicken here is worth the wait in the long lines. It’s a real Houston institution. I once attended a River Oaks dinner party where the host drove to the Third Ward and brought back a mess of Frenchy’s fried chicken and collard greens and served it on fine china with a chilled Pouilly-Fuissé. Best. Dinner. Party. Ever.

That was a few years ago, but today more and more chef-driven restaurants are doing real Southern fried chicken.

Phil Mitchell of Phil & Derek’s Restaurant and Wine Bar subscribes to the Cajun theory, using regular milk and flour and special Cajun spices to coat his birds, which turn up in Cobb salads and on the Sunday brunch buffet with waffles and syrup.

Of course, if you’re into wings and waffles, The Breakfast Klub is a go-to must. The Klub is the first place I ever tasted wings and waffles and the blending of crispy chicken and sweet Belgian waffles with syrup was eye opening.

Max’s Wine Dive, a forerunner of the gastro explosion on Washington Ave. that opened in 2006, made its reputation with gourmet down home fried chicken. Its house-made jalapeño and buttermilk-marinated chicken, deep-fried slow and low, is a delicious foodie tribute to childhood eats. It’s why they have T-shirts with the slogan “Fried chicken and champagne, why the hell not?” made up.

Seriously, why the hell not indulge in that combo?

Craving a fried chicken fix for lunch? Check out Randy Evans’ Haven on Thursday when the $10 Blue Plate Special offers a sublime old school fried chicken meal. No wings and waffles here, but for a different take on fried do try the amazing dish of fried chicken livers with andouille cream gravy atop buttermilk biscuits.

While this is nothing like anything I ever ate growing up, it is truly a decadent comfort food. Maybe not the most heart and waist friendly dish on the menu but one should try at least once in your life.

Least you think fried chicken is only an American Southern dish, note that fried foods have been prepared in Europe since the Middle Ages. Fried chicken was known as pollo fritto in Italy, as Ga Xao in Vietnam and the Scotts had a tradition of deep frying chicken in lard long before Scottish immigrants brought it to America.

And look no further than Houston’s own Kenny & Ziggy’s Deli for some comfort-fried chicken that is decidedly not Southern. At least not south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Third-generation deli man Ziggy Gruber makes a special dish called South Bronx Fried Chicken that’s crunchy and juicy. He mixes matzo meal with flour for an extra crunchy crust. It’s a Jewish take on a Southern dish. But if you want to indulge in this tasty treat you need to get on the email list. Gruber only makes it occasionally and you’ll only know about it when he sends out an email blast.

However you make it, the hallmark of good fried chicken is that it’s tasty, crunchy and not dried out on the inside. And not too greasy. If it takes an entire role of paper towels to eat a wing, it’s just not right.

And good fried chicken is heaven on earth when it’s hot right out of the kitchen, but the true test is if it’s still wonderful served cold the next day.

Which kinda makes me wonder why National Fried Chicken Day is July 6 and not July 3, so you can stuff your July Fourth picnic basket with cold fried chicken. And maybe a chilled bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé.

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6 questions with Mark Black

Terry Black's co-founder dishes on Houston opening and future hotel plans

Courtesy of Terry Black's Barbecue

Diners walk past the restaurant's six smokers.

Houston barbecue fans are buzzing about the arrival of Terry Black’s Barbecue, which opens in the Heights (1329 N. Shepherd) this Tuesday, August 18.

Touted by Texas Monthly as “the most impressive barbecue chain in Texas,” the restaurant is known for serving its full menu seven days a week for lunch and dinner. Six, 1,000-gallon offset smokers — the first thing diners see once they walk in from the parking lot — help ensure that diners will never have to pass on brisket, beef ribs, pork ribs, turkey, and two kinds of house made sausage. They’re paired with sides, desserts, and the restaurant’s signature black frozen margarita.

Houston comes in the middle of a growth spurt for Terry Black’s and its parent company, Black Family Hospitality. It’s already preparing to open a Terry Black’s in New Braunfels. By years end, the company will add a San Antonio location that will also include a boutique hotel and a bathhouse that may be called The Depths.

Eventually, Black Family Hospitality will add a hotel, bathhouse, and steakhouse to its Houston property. Eager to learn more about the company’s perspective on Houston and its future plans, CultureMap spoke to Terry Black's co-founder Mark Black. Read on for details about the other Houston neighborhood he and his brother Mike considered for Terry Black’s, a few details on the hotel (coming in 2028), and what he recommends first time visitors order.

CultureMap: How did you decide on the Heights as the right location for Terry Black’s?
Mark Black: We looked all over Houston for the perfect location. I really liked a lot of things about EaDo, but unfortunately they were doing a big highway expansion project. So we found this property in the Heights and we just kind of fell in love with it, fell in love with the area, too.

CM: Houston has a well-established barbecue scene. How do you see Terry Black’s fitting in?
MB: When we opened in Austin, there was a ton of good barbecue restaurant. Same thing with Dallas, Fort Worth, even the smaller areas. My hometown of Lockhart is known as the barbecue capital of Texas.

I think we can be very successful here. And of course, there's a ton of other successful barbecue restaurants and really, really good barbecue in Houston. So we're excited to come join the market.

CM: Tell me about Terry Black’s commitment to being open for lunch and dinner every day, because I think of that as a big part of your identity.
MB: Absolutely. It's definitely part of our brand identity. Being open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. When we first went into Austin, everyone was kind of following that Franklin's model. And what I refer to as the Franklin model was, I'm going to be open limited days for lunch. I'm gonna sell out and we're gonna shut down for the day.

We said, we've got to do something different. We want to separate ourselves. Not only that, there's two of us. So we're young, we're hungry, we're gonna grind. My brother and I would split shifts. The first year, year-and-a-half we were open, we worked about 400 days straight. We're putting anywhere from 12 to 16 hour days and we would split shifts.

We would just grind it out, and there was 2 of us, and we could do that. We knew we needed to separate ourselves and be different than some of the other barbecue restaurants there. That's how we would find our nature. It worked out really well for us.

CM: For people who've heard about Terry Black’s but haven’t tried it yet, what do you have to get on your first visit?
MB: When you come to Terry Black’s, it's traditional Central Texas barbecue. You've got to get the Texas trinity — brisket, pork ribs, and sausage. With that being said, what we've started to become known for is what we refer to as the Cadillac of barbecue, the beef ribs.

Personally, my favorite side, shockingly enough, is green beans. It's our second biggest seller. It's a fresh green bean that we actually go direct to the farm. It's a high quality green bean as opposed to something that may come out of a can

CM: We're focused on the restaurant, but I've read that there's a hotel component. Can you tell me anything about that?
MB: There is gonna be a boutique hotel here. It'll have 14 rooms, give or take, and it'll have a steakhouse that we've already branded. Can't release that quite yet, but it has been branded. And there's other elements. We'll have a members aspect of it. We’ll have a bathhouse, a gym, things of that nature. That's still in the in the planning stages.

CM: What's it been like kind of diversifying Black Family Hospitality beyond barbecue?
MB: Growing Black Family Hospitality has been fun. The barbecue's something that we've done all of our lives. So when we jumped into Opal's Oysters [in Waco] and the bowling alley and Glory Roll Sushi [in Lockhart], it was a challenge, but they've been fun and I really enjoy those now at this stage of our career.

The project that most excites me is the bathhouse. We're at a point where we want to do fun concepts that we enjoy going to. Of course, we enjoy going to the barbecue restaurants and the other restaurants that we have, but more experiential type stuff like the bathhouse and jumping into the hotels and things of that nature are what I'm really excited about. It's going to be a challenge, but we've got a really good team.

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Courtesy of Terry Black's Barbecue

Diners walk past the restaurant's six smokers.

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