Fried Chicken appears as a signature dish in 3 United States cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Atlanta fried chicken · Atlanta
Bone-in fried chicken, brined and breaded, served with sides at a Southern Black-owned dining room. Paschal's set the standard in the civil rights era.
Atlanta's fried chicken tradition runs through Paschal's, founded in 1947 by brothers Robert and James Paschal on West Hunter Street and a key civil rights organising room where Martin Luther King Jr planned with the SCLC. Busy Bee Cafe opened in 1947 on Hunter Street and won a James Beard America's Classics Award in 2022. Mary Mac's Tea Room since 1945 still serves the cracker-crusted version with sides. The dish is the city's continuous thread from Reconstruction-era cooking to today.
Where to eat in Atlanta:
- Paschal's
- Busy Bee Cafe
- Mary Mac's Tea Room
Carolina fried chicken · Charlotte
Carolina fried chicken is buttermilk-brined chicken double-dredged in seasoned flour and fried crisp, served with biscuits, pimento cheese and a hot honey.
Fried chicken arrived in the South via West African cooking traditions that combined with Scottish frying methods on Carolina plantations through the 18th and 19th centuries. By the 20th century the dish was the canonical Sunday-supper plate across Charlotte's churches and mill households. Today Price's Chicken Coop, Haberdish and Mert's Heart and Soul keep the Charlotte tradition with cast-iron-fried birds and seasoned crust.
Where to eat in Charlotte:
- Haberdish
- Bossy Beulah's
- Mert's Heart and Soul
Southern fried chicken · Greenville
Buttermilk-marinated chicken, double-dredged in seasoned flour, fried until the crust crackles. The Carolinas variation often runs spicier than Georgia's Nashville-influenced style.
Fried chicken in the Carolinas traces to West African frying technique combined with Scottish flour-dredging. The meat-and-three diner format kept fried chicken on the lunch counter through the textile-mill years. OJ's Diner on Pendleton has been frying since the 1980s, with the chicken often sold out by 14:00.
Where to eat in Greenville:
- OJ's Diner
- Tupelo Honey
- GB&D (Golden Brown and Delicious)