The Best Hot Fried Chicken In Nashville | Best Of The Best

I like it, but it hurts. $4.00 is always low anytime you need it. Hi guys, I'm Herrine. And I'm Alana. And today we are in Nashville. This place isn't just home to great music and Southern charm, it's also home to hot chicken. Yeah, and we're hitting up four major spots today. One is the place that started it all. The other is like an empire. And the other two are local favorites. We aren't just looking for hot chicken that's spicy and hurts you. We're looking for actual great flavor and bold seasoning. Right, it has to be crunchy on the outside, juicy on the inside, the whole shebang. I am so nervous. Yeah, like my insides are going to probably hate me after this. You and me both. But we're here to find out which one's the best, so let's get going. All right, let's go. To keep it fair, we will be ordering the hot at each location. Our first stop is Prince's Hot Chicken. Legend has it that this is the birthplace of the iconic Nashville dish. It's hot! Boy, I'm crying now. Prince's is better because it's the original to Nashville. And it has the best story as to why it got started as well. My great uncle was a very outgoing, out-of-the-box type person. This is Miss Andre Prince. She's the owner of Prince's, and she carries on her great uncle's legacy. The story goes that he came home late one night, and his lover wasn't pleased. She expressed her anger by cooking up some fried chicken, but fiery chicken to match her fury. He was probably taken aback, but after it settled in, he liked it. Who wouldn't? After that, Thornton Prince opened up a store and sold hot chicken to customers. More women eat it hot than men. That's why it had to have started with a woman. It's that fiery woman, that fire coming out of her. Prince's closely guards their recipe, so unfortunately, we couldn't make it back into the kitchen. I gotta make a living. I got bills to pay. The main thing is cayenne, and that has gotten around. Most popular, of course, is the chicken breast, press quarter. Oh my god, the immediate tears. I'm a fiery woman. The flavor explodes. It's not just hot. You need to try it, though. You need to feel what I'm feeling. Here goes nothing. Just go for it. Don't even think about it. Oh no. No, you have to let — oh my — no, Karen, it's a — it hits you later. I wouldn't have probably taken that second bite. I'm doing okay. Oh, the swallowing made it worse. Well, yeah, that's how one eats. It hits your throat. Like, in my mouth, it wasn't too bad. Yeah. I will say that in some, like, fried chicken spots that I've been to that say that they're spicy or hot, I've noticed that the seasoning is a little bit more on the salty side. But for this one, I feel like it's perfectly balanced. I don't think it's overly salty. I definitely taste the cayenne. The cayenne, to me, is, like, the most prominent flavor. That's the thing that's hitting your — like, throat kind of makes you cough a little bit. I feel like the reason why hot chicken became such a staple Nashville food because it's addictive. Like, as much as it's, like, painful, it clears the sinuses, though. This is a great way to start off the whole trip. Our second stop is Party Fowl, a newer player in the hot chicken game. While the Fiery Fowl is the main attraction at this place, it's also a full sit-down restaurant and bar. So, if you're going to do hot chicken in Nashville, one thing you need to do is kiss the ring. And there's one person in town that you've got to pay homage to, and that's Miss Andre. Well, with Nashville hot chicken being as great as it is and starting to gain some popularity, I saw there was no full-service, full-bar Nashville hot chicken anywhere in the country, and I went out to try to fix that. So, the awards we've been given — top five fried chicken in the United States of America. We've gotten to film shows with Shaquille O'Neal, and we've been on HBO. I mean, we really run the gambit. We've been very blessed. I know how good this place is. She and I love it, come here all the time. And we had to share with our buddies from out of town. That's all the hot chicken I've ever had. That's all I need. So, our classic way of serving hot chicken is, we cut the birds in half, and we fry the half as it is. The spices in our Nashville hot are going to be your cayenne, which is the most important part of Nashville hot chicken. Habanero Pure is what takes it to that next level. It sings a different note on your palate, and it really elevates that cayenne. Most people use a thin piece of white bread. Why Texas toast? It's because it's bigger. It's thicker. It sops up even more of that good mud. We have three neons on the outside of our building. Nashville Hot Chicken, Local Brews, and Boozy Slushies. Boozy Slushies put the flame out. My favorite one, though, for that is the bushwhacker. The dairy, the chocolate, all those notes really hammer down that spice. Okay. I have heartburn. You can smell that there's paprika there. Cayenne. Cayenne. They drizzled extra amount of, like, that bottom spice on top for us. So, a little extra something-something. Yeah. Okay. I like it, but it hurts. Is it helping at all? No. It's worse. This feels like the whole chicken. She's the food. That's good for me. How is it? The first bite I got was on the sweeter side, so I'm like, Karen, are you over-exaggerating? Just a little bit, and then the flavor's kind of chilled on my tongue for a little bit. It's kind of climbing up to my nose. I love how they double-bread it here. It's so crunchy. They might be new to the game, like, compared to Prince's, but the seasoning here is thicker. I feel like there's more of, like, a granular texture to it, and for that reason, I feel like the seasoning is a lot more pronounced. And it almost has, like, a sweeter, smokier flavor than other hot chicken. The sweetness allowed you to take a breath and really taste the flavors that are on it. It's just a good time. The food's delicious, and then you cool off with, like, a boozy slushy, and by the end of it, you're drinking this so much that you're probably gonna get a little tipsy. This makes just the hot chicken that much more fun and enjoyable. Our third stop is Hattie B's, known for helping spread the hot chicken frenzy from Nashville and beyond, with seven locations in four states. The chicken is the best chicken in the world. It is delicious. I come here so much that I know all the staff. They greet me by name. The great thing about hot chicken is that everybody does it differently. At Hattie B's, our menu is rooted, really, in the Southern Meat and Three, which I think are as much of Nashville as hot chicken is. For us, we really wanted to have distinct heat levels so that there was a little something for everybody. My opinion is that bone-in are the most traditional and probably the best way to get it. Our seasoning is absolutely a secret. It incorporates a little bit of habanero, but just a heavy dose of cayenne. We tried to think of the menu a little bit as, like, what would pair well and help kind of bring the heat down when you're suffering the most. This was a sign. Some of the awards that we've gotten, we've won best hot chicken in Nashville a couple times in the Reader's Poll. You look as happy as can be. Do I have something on my face? Ooh, that's bad. That's... Oh, that's so burning. It, like, hits your nose, like, like the back of your nose. There's something sweet in here. Brown sugar, maybe? Mmm. I think there's, like, a slight brown, sugary taste to it. That's a really good catch. Yeah, and I think it's killing the heat a little bit, so it's a slow crawl, but even, I feel like, at its peak, it's not unmanageable. Overall, this is deliciously seasoned, super crispy, the meat itself is juicy, no complaints on that. If you could change one thing, what would you think it'd be? I think, because I was expecting the hot to be, like, really, really hot, I wish that it was hotter, which means I probably should have just ordered the damn hot instead of the hot, but we're only going across the board as hot. We wanted to try the shut-the-clock-up before we left, just to see how hot Nashville really gets. Three, two, one. It didn't hit her yet, it didn't hit her yet. I hurt so much. Does it end? Our final stop is Pepperfire, where the hot chicken is truly hot. Like, HOT in all caps. And the hot chicken is done in ways you won't see anywhere else. My eyes are watering a little bit. Yeah. My nose is running a little bit, but I'm happy about it. Been here probably at least once a month for the last couple of years. You can customize the flavor, and also, it's just really juicy. What makes Pepperfire unique? We've always been flavor first, heat second. We definitely bring the heat, no doubt about that. Today, we're gonna serve you some original-style hot chicken. We're gonna go breast quarters and leg quarters, and we're gonna go hot. And that's gonna be an amazing amount of heat, but still have a lot of flavor. Pepperfire makes their hot chicken by first pouring a wet spice over the chicken, then doubling up on that heat by dusting a generous amount of secret seasoning. I feel so sorry for my esophagus, but here we go. The seasonings definitely hit you first. And then, oh, I feel it. On the lip area. That's like an ASMR crunch. You sweating? I am sweating. I can't tell if it's the 97 degrees in Nashville or the chicken, but you know. Either way, it's a hot girl summer. What do you think goes into this seasoning? Definitely cayenne, maybe vinegar on the liquid rub, because I'm getting a vinegary. Can you smell that? It made me cough. That's the cayenne. I feel like there's vinegar in there. Can we know? There's no vinegar in here. I think there's cumin in here. You're right. I think you're right. You have a good palate. Thank you so much. She does. So do you. Except for the vinegar, made no mistake. We're here to pick the best of the best. Do you have your pick? I think I have one. I do too. All right, ready? Three, two, one. Oh, okay, great. Yes. That was my second pick. I picked Princess, not only because the recipe was just delicious. I can understand why it is top secret. The chicken was super duper juicy. The skin was still crunchy on the outside. And the seasoning. I don't know what goes into that seasoning, but it was so, so good. I almost picked Princess for the same reasoning. That seasoning is incomparable. However, the reason why I picked Party Fowl is because there were other elements that I felt like shone a tiny bit more. Party Fowl had a crunchier skin. It was double fried. Second of all, the heat on Party Fowl's chicken was just like, they brought it. That was a true Nashville hot. Also, they served it with Texas toast. That's why I had to pick Party Fowl. I totally forgot about that Texas toast. And also, I realized that Party Fowl, they scooped up that bottom seasoning, gave it that extra oomph. So as much as Princess is a place that you have to go when you go to Nashville, Party Fowl, yeah, I'm gonna switch over to Ilana and agree that Party Fowl is the best. So what do you guys think? Do you think that Princess should have been the best of the best, or do you agree that Party Fowl ultimately is the winner? Or do you think it should have been Pepper Fire or Hattie B's, or a place we didn't even go to? Let us know in the comment section below. Bye! Little ice cream. Oh yeah.