Nashville, Tennessee, is a city that’s known for many different things,
but the tastiest of these things has got to be its hot chicken! If you’re a fan of hot chicken,
there is arguably no greater place in the world to find it than in the city
of Nashville. There are so many highly revered hot chicken places in the famous Tennessee city
that tourists will need to plan out an intricate itinerary just to try even a fraction of them.
Thankfully, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most celebrated hot chicken restaurants in the
city. From Hattie B’s Hot Chicken to Subculture Urban Cuisine and Café, join ViewCation as
we take a look at where you can find the best hot chicken in Nashville, Tennessee.
Hattie B’s Hot Chicken If your strategy for finding
the best hot chicken in Nashville, Tennessee, is to simply follow the crowds, you’re inarguably
going to come to Hattie B’s Hot Chicken on your own volition. Since first opening up in 2012,
the hot chicken joint has slowly overtaken much of the competition in the eyes of locals and
tourists alike. You’re liable to find lines going around the block when you arrive at Hattie B’s,
and you may wonder if the wait is going to be worth it. As the repeat customers and continued
popularity of the business would suggest, it certainly is! The hot chicken found at
Hattie B’s is inarguably some of the best around, and unique regional sides like banana pudding,
collard greens, and hot pimento mac and cheese round out the Southern dining experience.
While tourists will certainly get a good meal at Hattie B’s Hot Chicken, many don’t
realize that the restaurant is actually a sibling of sorts to another Nashville hot chicken joint
by the name of Bishop’s Meat and Three. Bishop’s Meat and Three provides a much more old-fashioned
experience than Hattie B’s, and we’ll be taking a closer look at it next in this video!
Bishop’s Meat and Three It’s hard to truly appreciate Hattie
B’s Hot Chicken without first taking a look at the restaurant that spawned it. Located just outside
of Nashville, Bishop’s Meat and Three has been serving up Southern-style food for much longer
than Hattie B’s has been around. As a matter of fact, hot chicken wasn’t even originally
on Bishop’s menu. The restaurant began serving chicken later on in its lifespan and was taken
aback by the popularity of the dish. Bishop’s Meat and Three then gradually began to serve hot
chicken more and more, until it eventually began serving the dish every single day.
Further on down the line, Bishop’s hot chicken got so popular that the Bishop family decided to
expand. Hence, Hattie B’s Hot Chicken was born. While Hattie B’s Hot Chicken is the
more popular of the two restaurants today for largely incidental reasons, there’s no
denying that Bishop’s is still the favorite of many Nashville traditionalists. The fact that
the restaurant is more old-fashioned and less crowded only makes it that much more beloved.
There are a great many Nashville locals who consider Bishop’s Meat and Three to be the
cream of the crop when it comes to restaurants in the Nashville area serving hot chicken.
Slow Burn Hot Chicken Another hot chicken
joint that’s currently considered to be amongst the best of the best in the Nashville area is Slow
Burn Hot Chicken. Slow Burn offers hot chicken at a variety of different heat levels, with the
lowest level of heat being deemed “sprinkle heat” and the highest level of heat being deemed “the
end”. This heat spectrum may seem intimidating at first, but you can trust Slow Burn to go
easy on those who ask for just a little bit of spice. Even those who go towards “the end”
on the restaurant’s heat spectrum are liable to experience just as much satisfying flavor
as they are excruciating heat. It’s not uncommon to hear diners use words such as “immaculate”
while referring to the flavor of the cuisine. Besides hot chicken, Slow Burn
also offers other regional fare such as seafood, pork chops, and hot fish.
While some Nashville hot chicken joints are notorious for putting an emphasis on heat over
flavor, Slow Burn Hot Chicken successfully attempts to provide the perfect balance.
Because of this, the restaurant is slowly overtaking legendary hot chicken restaurants
like the aforementioned Bishop’s Meat and Three in the eyes of locals. There
are a growing number of people that consider Slow Burn Hot Chicken to offer the preeminent
hot chicken experience in the Nashville area, and you might become one of them!
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Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack Besides Hattie B’s Hot Chicken, another
restaurant that you’re liable to come across if you simply follow the crowds in Nashville is
Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack. However, Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack has Hattie B’s beat, because it’s
been open for about six decades longer! Hattie B’s may be the newest joint that makes crowds
line up around the block, but Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack has been doing it for 70 years. Just as with
Hattie B’s, onlookers may gawk at the crowds and wonder if the cuisine is really worth the wait.
Once again, it most certainly is… that is, if you like your chicken hot, tasty, and fresh as can be!
Due to the legendary status of Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, the restaurant’s locations
only seem to get more popular and crowded as time goes on. Still,
the restaurant continues to provide an authentic hot chicken experience for both Nashville locals
and tourists visiting the area. Regardless of how many new hot chicken joints open up and steal the
spotlight away for the time being, Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack will certainly retain its status
as the granddaddy of all Nashville hot chicken joints… even if there’s another hot chicken joint
by the name of Granddaddy’s Famous Hot Chicken that we’ll be taking a look at next in this video!
Granddaddy’s Famous Hot Chicken Granddaddy’s Famous Hot Chicken is another
hot chicken joint that’s located slightly outside of Nashville, though the dining experience that it
offers is representative of the city to its core. Granddaddy’s is an old-fashioned and
family-friendly chicken joint that admirably aims to offer great hot chicken at reasonable prices.
In addition to traditional hot chicken, the restaurant also offers some more unique dishes,
such as hot chicken spring rolls, loaded baked potatoes,
and deep-fried hot dogs. If you’re looking for Southern-style cuisine in a casual atmosphere,
Granddaddy’s Famous Hot Chicken is hard to beat… even if Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack
is still technically considered to be the true granddaddy of Nashville hot chicken restaurants.
400 Degrees Another of
the more recent additions to Nashville’s ever-growing oeuvre of hot chicken restaurants
is 400 Degrees. The name of the restaurant comes from the highest level of spice offered
on its unique heat rating system, which goes by degrees. Rest assured, when you order the
hottest chicken that 400 Degrees offers, you’ll certainly feel like the temperature of your mouth
has been raised to 400 degrees Fahrenheit! Thankfully, it’s all in your taste buds.
400 Degrees has been around for well over a decade, and it’s slowly becoming more and
more popular as time goes on. One criticism that people often have about the restaurant is that the
food is too heavy, as it’s signature hot chicken is deep-fried instead of fried on the skillet.
However, when it comes to Southern-style hot chicken, calling something “too heavy” is often
seen as an odd critique. Some people may consider 400 Degrees to be the best hot chicken joint in
town for the same reason that others consider it to be a little bit too much. So long as you know
what you’re getting into, 400 Degrees offers a fantastically fattening dining experience.
Big Shake’s Hot Chicken & Fish Big Shake’s is another restaurant
in the Nashville area that offers hot chicken… and fish. The restaurant has a variety of locations,
all of which are located just outside of the city. The restaurant has become a favorite amongst
locals thanks to its incredibly generous portions. However, these generous portions mean that,
like 400 Degrees, Big Shake’s Hot Chicken & Fish is certainly not the restaurant
to go to if you’re looking to eat modestly. Southern-style excess is the name of the game
when it comes to the food served at Big Shake’s, and the restaurant makes good on the promise!
Red’s 615 Kitchen Most of the popular hot
chicken joints in Nashville like to keep things old-fashioned, but Red’s 615 Kitchen is one of the
restaurants that tries to do something more unique with its hot chicken. This seems to have paid off
for the restaurant, as customers routinely rave about the hot chicken’s decidedly different,
yet still incredibly savory, flavor. This flavor comes from founder Eric White’s personal recipe,
which involves buttermilk, a brine of hot sauce, and a secret mix of spicy seasonings.
To top it all off, the chicken is cooked in the chef’s own signature blend of lard.
Subculture Urban Cuisine and Café Another of the more modern restaurants
attempting to serve classic Nashville hot chicken with a twist is Subculture Urban
Cuisine and Café. The restaurant offers dishes such as hot chicken with waffles,
hot chicken ramen, and hot chicken tacos. To top it all off, the restaurant also doubles as a café.
Whether you’re looking to get some old-fashioned hot chicken served in a unique way,
get a cup of coffee, or simply soak in some unique Nashville culture, Subculture Urban Cuisine
and Café has you covered. The restaurant also attempts to use local ingredients.
If you were unsure of where to head to first while seeking out hot chicken in Nashville, hopefully,
this video gave you some ideas! Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that there
are multiple hot chicken restaurants in Nashville that have customers lining up around the block
daily and that one of them has been around for seven decades? As always, like this video to
show your support, and subscribe and hit the notification bell if you’d
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