The Flavors—and Sounds—of New Orleans’s Fried Chicken Festival

“You can see us at 3 p.m. at the Fried Chicken Festival tomorrow,” legendary trumpeter Kermit Ruffins said as he was wrapping up a Saturday night set at his bar, Kermit’s Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge. “Man, New Orleans has a festival for everything.”

He’s not wrong. The city knows how to throw a party. Mardi Gras might be the most famous, but just in the rest of this year alone, the city has almost 20 more scheduled, everything from the Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival to the 34th New Orleans Film Festival to the Bayou Bacchanal. While the chicken party was happening, a music festival that’s New Orleans’s version of South by Southwest, NOLAxNOLA, was running concurrently.

Maybe it’s a narrow focus, but it didn’t seem strange to me that there would be an entire festival dedicated to the food in a city known for churning out plate after plate of the world’s best, crispiest fried chicken. But the festival turned out to be about more than just spicy wings.

It might have been the end of September and theoretically already fall, but it was blazing when I got to the New Orleans Lakefront where thousands upon thousands of hungry people had gathered for the National Fried Chicken Festival. We were all overheated. We were all sweaty. And we were all ready for some piping hot chicken right out of the fryer.

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New Orleans National Fried Chicken Festival

The festival started in 2016, and this year brought in an estimated 123,000 people across two days, from all around the country (and probably further). The same went with the restaurants: almost all of them were independently owned, and while most of them were from NOLA, many came from across the South, and some even from the Pacific Northwest.

Lots of the fried chicken was straightforward—two or three pieces and a side—competing for the “best fried chicken” prize. The offerings in pursuit of the “best use of fried chicken in a dish” award from the more than 50 purveyors, though, were inventive, some downright weird, but all extremely enticing.

Whiskey & Sticks served fried chicken and fried turkey neck “cocktails” with sauces inspired by libations: old fashion, hold my mule and NOLA sweet and sour. Your Side Chicks, from Portland, Oregon, served a half fried chicken with fermented pickles, tenders with black garlic ranch, and “chicken and funnel cake” with fermented hot honey and marionberry compote. Stuff’d Wings from Houston, Texas served tenders stuffed with smoked gouda mac and cheese, chicken boudin or seafood boudin. Among the offerings from Pollo from Louisville, Kentucky: Loaded bacon chicken fries with chopped fried chicken, shredded cheese, bacon, banana peppers and optional snow crab. NOLA’s Heard Dat Kitchen served “Bourbon Street Love,” which was fried chicken over mac and cheese, topped with “crawdat” cream sauce and diced green onions. Four Pegs Smokehouse, also from Louisville, served a fried chicken and strawberry waffle sandwich with Crystal Hot Sauce-infused maple syrup.

You could also eat well at the festival if you don’t eat chicken, or meat at all. There were plant-based offerings like country fried blue oyster mushrooms with vegan secret sauce and chicken-fried tofu, and lots of alternate options like hot dogs topped with crawfish etouffee, collard greens-and-mushroom grilled cheese with Creole mustard sauce, fried catfish, Mexican street corn and birria tacos, among many others.

Unsurprisingly, both winners were from New Orleans—but surprisingly, they were both from relatively new restaurants. While venerable institutions like The Original Fiorella’s have won the “best fried chicken” prize in the past, this year’s winner was Redbird, which has two locations in the city’s suburbs that opened in February and June. The other prize, “best use of fried chicken in a dish,” went to Bao Mi, which opened last year, for their KFC (Korean Fried Chicken) bao.

I ate plenty of delicious fried chicken, the crispy kind and the kind drenched in sauce, but my favorite things were definitely on the creative side. I had a pimento grilled cheese topped with fried chicken and drizzled with hot honey from Catered To that was easily the most delicious grilled cheese I’ve ever had in my life. For dessert, I tried an “ice cream chicken leg” from Bof Bars, which was vanilla ice cream shaped into a drumstick, then coated in a crumble of waffle cone chips and crispy chicken skin. Maybe I was hot and needed something cold, but it was the best thing I’d eaten all day.

As much as the chicken was the reason for the gathering, it felt like the food was just a good excuse to get together and have a huge party. Yes, there was tons of stuff to eat, and long lines of people waiting to get it. But the waiting turned out to be the best part. If you planned it right, you had a drink or a snack to wait with, and plenty of time to soak in the atmosphere. The bands were especially great: I loved the Big 6 Brass Band, but other country, funk and hip hop acts also played the festival, like Big Freedia and a “50 Years of Hip Hop New Orleans” showcase.

But more than that, standing still, whether it was in front of one of the two concert stages or in line, just gave me a chance to talk to people. Every time I visit New Orleans, I fall harder and harder for its easygoing charm and its warm, welcoming people. In the span of one order and preparation of honey sriracha wings from Akasia’s Cafe, I chatted with a woman who grew up in the city, who vetted all my restaurant plans for me (Dooky Chase’s that night, and Tujacque’s the next), then gave me her thoughts on what to order and where I should go afterwards. By the time we got our food, we were taking photos together.

To me, that’s where the real magic of New Orleans is—not on Bourbon Street, and not in throwing beads, but in moments like that one.

Julie Tremaine is an award-winning food and travel writer who’s road tripping—and tasting—her way across the country. Her work appears in outlets like Vulture, Travel + Leisure, CNN Travel and Glamour, and she’s the Disneyland editor for SFGATE, covering California theme parks. Read her work at Travel-Sip-Repeat.com.