Chick’n’Sours, London WC2: ‘Like KFC, only much better’ – restaurant review

Walking to Chick’n’Sours, I pass two of the new breed of fried chicken joints: it seems we can’t get enough of poncified fast food. And when there’s a market for it, why not? If our new critical obergruppenführers, the Instagram “influencers”, are to be believed, there are two massive current food trends: simplistically, fatty for boys, skinny for girls. (Don’t get me started: the news about teenage girls and the epidemic of poor mental health and self-harming? Social media, I’m looking directly at you.) Chicken neatly straddles the two, even when fried. Ker-ching!

It’s with this dyspeptic frame of mind that I approach Chick’n’Sours. I know all about chef Carl Clarke, frenetic former DJ and pop-up supremo; I’ve checked out his original Haggerston outpost for a memorable whole fried chicken. But can what works in trend-lovin’ east London manage a successful transfer to the West End?

In all its high-kicking, crowd-pleasing glory, it most certainly can. This is fried chicken that should get all the applause (with the exception of one vegetarian, mushroom-based “bun”, the menu is mostly fried chicken). It’s not just junk food wantonly gourmet-fied; it’s fine cooking in its own right.

So we have chicken and more chicken, including a vast “guest fry” of drumstick and thigh from what seem to be the world’s biggest birds (free-range, herb-fed, from Pilmoor Grange in Yorkshire), crisp-fried and sticky with a hot and fragrant General Tso glaze. Hot and numbing wings, too, though we’re not sure that’s what we get. Rather than something rustling with Szechuan peppercorns, we get an unholy congress of Korean double-fried style and cornershop Chinese sweet’n’sour, complete with gloopy, scarlet sauce. It’s sluttily great. Xian Xian chicken tenders bring a huge plateful of breast meat, rugged with cumin and chilli.

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Even side dishes and starters are firecrackers: Szechuan aubergine is a squelch of earthy vegetable in crisp batter, and alive with the “fish-fragrant” flavours of chilli bean paste and Chinese vinegar. The antidote to all this fried excess comes from ginger miso slaw, pickled watermelon or hot-and-sour pineapple: a magnificent treatment of the fruit, vivid with pungent XO (dried seafood and pork) sauce, lime juice and peanuts.

After a few dishes, there’s a feeling that your tastebuds are being held hostage and bludgeoned into whimpering submission. Forget subtlety, this is food that biffs and pows, makes you gasp and grin: the outrageously crisp chicken, the electrifying pineapple, the nachos. Oh, man, the “Mexi-Nese” nachos: I thought I was way too grown up to order such teenage pothead favourites, but these – freshly fried corn chips, a ragù made from chicken, fermented chilli paste and smoked bacon, lashings of pickled jalapeños, kimchi and a gloriously plasticky cheese sauce with a touch of anchovy – these are adult enough to come with a triple-X certificate.

The most vanilla choice is the Colonel, a homage to the white-suited godfather of fried chicken. As towering in height as Chick’n’Sours’ trademark K-Pop (a Korean-style bun), it’s deceptively soothing with its iceberg lettuce laced with buttermilk and herb mayo, and fried thigh boosted with sticky cheese and pickles. But it is remarkable, somehow managing to taste like the first time you had KFC, a weird, mesmerising return to the palate of childhood, only better. Much, much better.

Staff, orchestrated by co-owner David Wolanski, are absolute stars. And I mustn’t overlook the sours, cocktails featuring a touch of various vinegars to add an exquisite prickle of acidity to the richness of the chickens. Created by affable mixologist Sam Dunne, they’re complex and dangerously good. This is altogether more sultry basement boîte than KFC; I have particular love for the wall made from old printing blocks.

Of course, there has to be a USP. We’re told that, by frying the birds in low trans-fat rapeseed oil with its high burning point, Chick’n’Sours’ chicken is 30% less fatty than its trashy counterparts. But who cares? If you fancy fried chicken once in a while, or a few rounds of tequila slammers, or even the odd flirtation with MDMA, it won’t kill you any faster than living in a city, or lighting a barbecue or an over-reliance on Spanx. And if you take the slab of deep-fried bird option, I really can’t think of a better one than here.

Chick’n’Sours 1a Earlham Street, London WC2, sevendials@chicknsours.co.uk. Open all week, noon-10.30pm. About £20 a head for three courses, plus drinks and service.

Food 8/10
Atmosphere 8/10
Value for money 8/10