The Best Fried Chicken Places in America

With two Dallas locations (the Cedar Springs outlet gets the nod here), Street’s cooks their French-fried chicken to order (it’ll take 20 minutes to 30 minutes, warns the menu). Also on offer: fried chicken sandwiches, crispy tenders, and chicken “lollipops” (smoked and fried drumsticks) — as well as chicken roasted with herbes de Provence or marinated peri peri style (a spicy Portuguese preparation).

Japanese-style fried chicken dinners — chicken rice, house-pickled ginger cabbage, and both sweet and spicy ponzu sauce are included — are the draw here. Unusual side dishes include crispy fried chicken skin, curry creamed corn, and soy-glazed yams, and there are both L.A.-area and Japanese craft beers to wash it all down with.

This industrial-look Koreatown restaurant, hidden behind a pizza parlor, has vinyl records on the walls and a DJ booth — but patrons won’t experience the interior right now as the restaurant is open only for takeout and delivery. Fried wings, drumsticks, boneless breasts, and combinations, with soy garlic or hot and spicy sauce (or half and half) are the feature.

This casual counter-service restaurant is all about the wings, available bone-in or boneless. The numerous variations include 13 different dry coatings (Caribbean jerk, garlic parmesan, even funnel cake batter with powdered sugar) and 22 wet sauces (spicy curry, Buffalo ranch, honey chile lime, sweet mustard…). Fries are available plain, topped with Philly cheesesteak, or tossed in any one of the wing sauces.

After opening pop-ups in Maryland and Virginia in 2018, Wooboi set up this permanent shop last year just outside D.C. Tenders, wings, and breast are on the menu, and there’s a chicken and waffles combo, too. Six heat levels are available; the hottest, Code Red and Code Blue, require diners to sign a chalkboard “waiver” — part of which reads “I do not have a medical condition that could jeopardize my health or well being during or after eating Wooboi hot chicken.” A second location has just opened in Alexandria, Virginia.