Our Double-Cooked Chicken Wings

We clucking love chicken wings and this one is for all you wings lovers (generally the mucky clucks with sauce smeared all over their faces, hands and t-shirts).

Our wings are double cooked so the meat falls of the bone and the skin is proper crispy. You can find them on our menu all week and available with a choice of all of our homemade sauces. Every Wednesday, Wings Wednesday, we give you free wings with every main meal. So get stuck in people…

But where did it all begin?


Photo credit, CC BY 2.0

The Buffalo Wings.

Back in 1964, Teressa Bellissimo, the co-owner and chef of Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York (where the name comes from, obvs) created one of food’s happiest ever accidents.

It all came about from a mistaken delivery: chicken wings instead of chicken necks and backs, which the Bellissimo family typically used to make their spaghetti sauce.

From here on in, the story gets a bit confusing.

The first version of how the wings were created is that Dominic Bellissimo (son of Teressa) came into the bar late one Friday night with his friends and asked his mother to throw them together a quick snack. Teressa was in the kitchen preparing some chicken stock for making soups and sauces using the chicken wings, so she decided to broil some instead and serve them to her son and his mates.

Probably because she thought they’d be too pissed to notice.

But Dominic used to tell a different and slightly more colourful story. The bar used to attract a large crowd of Catholics and, at the time, it was usual for Catholics to only eat fish and vegetables on a Friday. So Dominic thought, on one particularly busy Friday night that, as a thank you to his customers, he would bring something free out for them to eat at midnight when they were permitted to eat meat again.

He asked his Mother to put something together and all she could find was a crate of chicken wings in the kitchen. Hallelujah.

Finally, Frank Bellissimo (husband of Teressa) has got his own story. It’s the simplest one, so it’s probably true.

Basically the bar got some wings delivered by accident. And they cooked them up a storm.

The one thing they do all agree on, is that, after some time experimenting, Teressa emerged from the kitchen with fried wings covered in a melted butter, vinegar and hot pepper sauce, served with celery and blue cheese salad dressing.

And then it kicked off.

The popularity of Buffalo Wings in is in part thanks to the American Football team “Buffalo Bills”, who made it to the Super Bowl four seasons in a row between 1990-93.

During this period the area of Buffalo garnered a lot of media attention. The local food scene was covered and in particular a light was shone on the wings that had, by now, become synonymous with the area.

So, here’s to you Teressa and your wings that are truly bellissimo!

International Beer Day

International Beer Day
With Flip The Bird IPA

Friday 3rd August

 

Flippin’ ell, it’s international beer day on Friday! International Beer Day is a global celebration of beer, taking place in pubs, breweries, and backyards all over the world. It’s a day for beer lovers everywhere to raise a toast to our brewers and bartenders and rejoice in the greatness of beer!

To join the celebrations, we’re giving away FREE PINTS of our FLIP THE BIRD IPA this Friday from 4pm. You know we love BOOZE & CHICKEN so to perfectly compliment your pint you’ll also get to sample our Salt n Peppa menu for free too. 

Our Flip the Bird IPA is brewed by The Brightside Brewing Company in Manchester and is ‘American in style and multi-national in hop content (mostly US with a touch of NZ)! Lightly caramelised malts provide the central core, but the American Cascade is the main attraction bringing bold grapefruit and floral aromas to the beer, which finishes with a clean, refreshing bitterness’.

To get your free pint make sure you sign up here before Friday and we’ll email you a voucher of pure hoppy happiness. 

Have a great weekend with BOOZE & CHICKEN