What’s on the menu at Chica’s Chicken, the Junction’s new kitchen for Nashville hot chicken

By Caroline Aksich | Photography By Caroline Aksich | May 29, 2018

By Caroline Aksich | Photography By Caroline Aksich | 05/29/2018

More Nashville hot chicken

Here’s the word on the very spicy bird at Five Points Hot Chicken

Name: Chica’s Chicken
Contact: 2853 Dundas St. W., 416-564-6326, @chicas.chicken
Neighbourhood: The Junction
Previously: Concourse Restaurant
Owners: Carolyn and Matthew Pelechaty
Chef: Matthew Pelechaty (Adamson Barbecue, Medium Rare)

The food

Chicken (mild, medium or “hot AF”) and three sides (waffle fries, a bean salad and slaw). That’s it, that’s all. One of the OG cooks that helped launch Leaside’s uber-popular Adamson Barbecue, Matthew was a barbecue fan long before our city had any of the good stuff. So when he was deciding where to have his bachelor party, the answer was easy: Nashville, where the best thing he ate was the hot chicken at Prince’s. “It changed my life,” he says. He loved everything about it, from the super-hot bird to the atmosphere. “It’s a literal hole in the wall—you actually order from a hole cut in the dry wall,” he says. So, when the Junction greasy spoon was up for lease, he pounced on the opportunity. Matthew spent months trying to develop his own hot chicken method. “I wasted so much money and chicken getting it to this point,” he says.

A dark quarter-chicken meal comes with waffle fries, house-made ranch dressing, white bread and pickles. $14.25.

The wing plate is four wings high and is more than a pound of bird. $15.95.

The “For 3” platter, with three orders of chicken and a choice of three sides, is good for, you guessed it, three hungry people. $37.50.

This sandwich stacks juicy thigh with lettuce, pickles and buttermilk ranch on white bread. $11.50. Photograph by Caroline Aksich

The mild paste is made from ancho chilies, smoky paprika and black pepper. The medium gets some added heat from cayenne. And the hot starts with a medium base that gets electrified with added ghost and Carolina Reaper peppers.

Newlyweds Carolyn and Matthew Pelechaty are high-school sweethearts who grew up in Etobicoke.

The drinks

No beer here, folks. The restaurant is unlicensed and sells only iced tea and various Boylan’s sodas.

The space

It took a month’s worth of elbow grease to get the joint presentable, but other than a mural by Sleekstak and some vintage wood cladding, the Pelechatys decided to leave much of what once was Concourse Restaurant intact.