Wishbone

Wishbone is a tiny hole in the wall place in Brixton’s Market Row, selling fried chicken. Whether it is glib, lazy or at worst offensive to reference the inevitable popularity of chicken in Brixton, (or pointedly naïve not to mention it), it’s not inaccurate as Wishbone was absolutely packed when I visited.

This is no Chicken Cottage situation however; all birds are free range and dishes include wings and deboned thighs with various seasonings and treatments such as Buffalo, Korean and barbecue, served with dipping sauces. The Buffalo wings were pretty damn spicy and very meaty.

Special mention for the side dishes, especially the deep fried mac’ n’ cheese. These are pockets of the hash brown variety, hot and crisp, filled with macaroni cheese. Absolutely delicious, I’d say that ironically these contain no chicken and yet could become the signature dish of Wishbone. You get 4 for about £4.50.

You might infer from the (very reasonable) pricing that this isn’t a place to linger, but a long list of sours and strong beer selection means there is plenty to stay for and we felt no pressure to hurry at all. The staff were lovely and chatty, tunes were old school hip hop and service was quick.

My one red flag was the Hot Mess, which was a jumbled dish of broken hash browns coated with cheese and tomato sauce, jalapenos and pickles. It sounds like the ultimate in dirty filthy junk dude whatever food, but when faced with it, the grease quotient is just a little too much and makes the dish quite unappealing.

When we visited (a Saturday around 2pm), the quarter and half chicken portions were unfortunately sold out, so the selection was between wings, boneless thighs and the chicken wrap. Hopefully this was an isolated issue, but if not I’d say that now they’re bedded down, they may want to expand the menu a little. 

Still, it’s a buzzy, fun place and I’d definitely return. A fried chicken and waffle brunch dish wouldn't go amiss...I'm not aware of anyone in London doing it at the moment. This I ate at the Nob Hill Grille in San Francisco last month, and it was quite fantastic: