Or CFC (Completely Fantastic Chicken)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
In one of the many memorable scenes in the 1980 musical The Blues Brothers, the late, great Aretha Franklin proclaims that her Soul Café serves up the “best darn chicken in the state”. We’ll never know if that was true, but one thing that’s for certain is that Chicken Street serves up the best darn chicken in Dijon, France, and possibly the world.
An outlandish claim you may think, but this review’s being written by someone who knows great fried chicken when he eats it. Also, there are plenty of other Chicken Street outlets scattered throughout France and beyond, but if they do it better than Dijon then mustard’s not the word.
The Early Whistle could never be accused of being high-brow, but some of you might think we’re going a little too far in the opposite direction here. Not a bit of it; this place is simply far too good to ignore. First of all, it fits the streets of Dijon – charming, leafy and lined with bars and cafés – like a glove. Second, and just as importantly (to borrow from a famous TV ad), this is not just chicken; this is chicken and naan (something you’ll never find at KFC, I hasten to add).
Whatever you do, don’t order food from this place without naan bread as part of your meal. Not only is it a rarity among such restaurants, but it’s also very buttery. Enough to distinguish it from the decidedly dry stuff you get at some Indian takeaways, but not too much that it’s über-rich and overpowering. Which leads us on to the headline act…
The chicken is divided into three categories: tenders, wings and nuggets. There are burgers on the menu as well, but if you really want to taste this place in full flow, then I’d start with tenders and wings. These are the boneless, regular pieces and are as good as any you’ll try. There’s no war between batter and chicken, just a fine balance between the two, so it’s the whole thing that’s vying for your taste buds. So often the coating can be that dominant it turns into a crunch-fest, or so lacking that you may as well have just waited for your next Sunday dinner.
What gives Chicken Street an added competitive edge to take the title are the wings. I decided to go for non-spicy over spicy this time, and the very last thing they can be described as is bland. Even though they’re the mild type, there’s the subtlest of kicks to the taste, elevating them to a place where you’d swear this was proper gastronomy rather than fast food.
But this is France, after all, and nion every aspect of the meal tasted like so much TLC had gone into it. I wish with all my heart that I could go on to wax lyrical about Chicken Street’s fries, but that would be stretching it. They’re very good, but we want this review to be a true reflection, don’t we. However, Orangina is offered among your choice of soft drinks; a pleasure I haven’t sipped for a while.
As mentioned, this is no shack but as close to a proper restaurant as fried chicken’s going to get. It gets the balance just right because, well, a proper restaurant just wouldn’t suit this type of cuisine, now would it? But it’s spacious enough, with the decor not too garish nor too dull, and the lights low-ish, to easily persuade you to dine in rather than take your spoils back to the hotel room.
In a city that’s famous for its mustard, this is a culinary stand-out, and not just because it’s one of the last places to close of an evening. In fact Dijon’s got not one but two of these gems. It seems that Chicken Street’s the best-kept secret of its kind, and if its popularity spreads it could have the final word on fried chicken.
The Early Whistle 