Nashville hot chicken will light your mouth on fire. Here’s where to find it around Boston.
Can you handle the heat?
If you need any proof that Nashville hot chicken has established itself firmly in mainstream food culture, look no further than KFC, which added its own version to the chain’s menu in 2016. But while the fiery dish has exploded in popularity over the past few years (and inspired dozens of painful food challenges), its introduction to Boston has been more of a slow burn. Local restaurants and pop-ups have only recently started offering it on their menus, putting their own spin on the poultry dish while always incorporating a cayenne-heavy spice mix that serves as the hallmark of hot chicken.But first: We can’t talk about the good stuff without talking about Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack. Owned by André Prince Jeffries, the restaurant has inspired countless copycats throughout the country, and as of recently operated two locations — one in northeast Nashville and one in south Nashville — until the northeast location closed after a 2018 fire. The folklore behind the dish involves a woman scorned: One night, Jeffries’ great-uncle Thornton Prince III — a flirtatious pig farmer known for his wandering eye — was late coming home to his girlfriend. The following day, he asked her to make fried chicken, and she exacted her revenge by adding copious amounts of cayenne and other fiery spices to his favorite dish.Prince III suffered, but he also loved the twisted take, and eventually started making Nashville hot chicken for himself and his neighbors. Around 1945, he opened BBQ Chicken Shack, which was then passed down through the family until it landed with Jeffries, who changed the name to Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack. There are now varying levels of heat, from Plain to XXX Hot — though pity the diner who thinks he or she can get past the Hot level without feeling pain.
While you can’t find XXX Hot levels in Boston, you can find some tongue-tingling variations at a handful of restaurants. Here are some of our favorites, from a roving hot chicken pop-up to a taxidermy-laden watering hole in Cambridge.
Buttermilk & Bourbon
Nashville hot chicken at Buttermilk & Bourbon.
“I think Nashville hot chicken is one of the best things ever,” said Jason Santos.
The Buttermilk & Bourbon chef and owner, who released a cookbook earlier this year, serves three types of chicken at his Southern restaurant in the Back Bay — wings, boneless fried thighs, and a bone-in half chicken — which can all be ordered with a sweet and spicy sauce, barbecue syrup, white barbecue sauce, or Nashville hot sauce. His Nashville version is made by frying chicken in canola oil, tossing it in rendered pork fat, and then dusting it with the restaurant’s proprietary Nashville spice blend.
Santos doesn’t just limit the blend to chicken — every so often, Buttermilk & Bourbon will serve Nashville hot oysters, he said.
Buttermilk & Bourbon; 160 Commonwealth Ave., Boston; Mondays–Thursdays from 4 p.m.–midnight; Fridays from 4 p.m.–1 a.m.; Saturdays from noon–1 a.m., Sundays from 10:30 a.m.–10 p.m.; buttermilkbourbon.com
Hot Chix
Nashville Hot Chicken from Hot Chix.
If you can’t find it, make it.
That’s the drive that Alex Kim (general manager at Eventide Fenway), Alex Nystedt (formerly of Sportello), and Will Yoo (owner of a couple Charleys Philly Steaks franchises) used to launch Hot Chix, a Nashville hot chicken pop-up that is currently searching for a brick-and-mortar location around Boston.
“[Kim] went to Nashville a few years ago and tried Nashville hot chicken for the first time, and he found himself craving it back in Boston,” said Nystedt. “It’s something that you can find on some of the menus here, but we’re trying to offer it in a more casual way. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we’re really just trying to bring consistent, really tasty fried chicken to the table.”
Hot Chix has been using its pop-ups, which began in February, to dial in a base heat for the hot chicken sandwiches while working on various spice levels. Nystedt said that they’ve found that the people coming to their events are looking for serious heat — and Hot Chix is delivering.
Pop-ups have taken place at Drink, Tasting Counter, Orange Door Kitchen, and PAGU; keep an eye on Hot Chix’s Instagram for details about upcoming events.
Hot Chix; various locations and times; hotchixboston.com
The Porch Southern Fare & Juke Joint
Nashville hot chicken at The Porch Southern Fare & Juke Joint.
Chef Jonathan Post opened The Porch in Medford this past July, a reimagining of the original location which operated in Wakefield from 2016 to 2018. On the menu, fried chicken is served plain or Nashville hot — though Post, a Nashville native, said that they try to keep it from being “face-meltingly hot.”
“My favorite thing is, it’s not just the heat but it’s also a nice combination of spicy and salty and sweet,” he said. “Ours has a nice sweetness to it.”
Post’s dry rub uses a bit of ghost pepper and is mixed with oil before the chicken is tossed in. It’s served with housemade bread and butter pickles — a side that Post said is “elemental” to Nashville hot chicken.
The Porch Southern Fare & Juke Joint; 175 Rivers Edge Dr., Medford; Daily 5 p.m.–midnight; theporchsouthern.com
Six String Grill & Stage
Nashville hot chicken at Six String Grill & Stage.
Decked out in giant portraits of Dolly Parton and Elvis Presley, Six String Grill & Stage fully embraces its Southern roots — not just through its regularly scheduled line dancing nights, but through its menu rife with gumbo and catfish. The restaurant, which joined Foxborough’s Patriot Place lineup in May, also pays homage to the South with a Nashville hot chicken sandwich.
Chef Mike Gracie tosses the buttermilk-battered dark meat in a traditional Nashville hot sauce, which comes sandwiched between a bulky country roll along with pickles, mayonnaise, and shredded lettuce, plus a side of fries. Can’t handle the heat? Tap into Six String’s craft beer list for a cool refresher, like Nightshift’s Whirlpool or Mighty Squirrel’s Cloud Candy.
Six String Grill & Stage; 275 Patriot Place, Foxborough; Mondays–Thursdays from 11 a.m.–12:30 a.m., Fridays–Saturdays from 11 a.m.–1 a.m., Sundays from 11 a.m.–midnight; sixstringfoxborough.com
State Park
Nashville hot chicken at State Park.
Boston may have seen a recent spurt of hot chicken options, but State Park in Cambridge was one of the OGs. Tyler Sundet — chef/partner at Big Dipper Hospitality Group, the restaurant group behind Cafe du Pays, Mamaleh’s, State Park, and the now-shuttered Hungry Mother — said that State Park’s Nashville hot chicken landed on the menu as soon as the Kendall Square spot opened in 2013.
“[State Park] took a lot of influence from Hungry Mother, but we wanted to offer hot chicken as a more casual experience,” said Sundet. “None of us had ever gone down to Nashville to try it at Prince’s, but we put [the hot chicken] on there, and now it’s one of our most popular dishes.”
State Park’s version is dipped in lard, with a spice blend that gets its bite from ghost chilis, cayenne, salt, sugar, garlic powder, and onion powder; the whole shebang comes with a side of collard greens and bread and butter pickles. There’s also a Nashville hot aioli available for diners who want to dip their fries in something with a little more zing than ketchup.
“We get a fair amount of chili-heads,” said Sundet.
State Park; 1 Kendall Square, Cambridge; Mondays–Wednesdays from 11 a.m.–1 a.m., Thursdays and Fridays from 11 a.m.–2 a.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m.–2 a.m., Sundays from 10 a.m.–1 a.m.; statepark.is
