On a recent night, around 7 p.m., throngs of good-looking 30-somethings linger on an Alphabet City sidewalk, undeterred by the one-hour-plus wait times a hostess dishes out with Southern charm.
"It's a 90-minute wait," says Tara Leff, 31, who works in fashion and lives in Westchester. "But we don't mind. We'll wait for amazing fried chicken."
A hot new bird has flown into town, and the city's food-loving masses are lining up. Root & Bone opened on East Third Street at the end of June; in the weeks since, its crispy fried chicken has been declared the city's best new bird, and the couple that brought it to the city is just as hot.
Root & Bone is the brainchild of chefs Jeff McInnis, a 36-year-old who grew up in the Florida panhandle and has an easy, shaggy charm, and Janine Booth, a beautiful 26-year-old Australian expat. The picture-perfect couple came to New York via Miami, where McInnis made a name for himself with his creative Southern fare. They both appeared on Bravo's "Top Chef," but on different seasons — he on the fifth season, she on the eleventh.
The tasty fried chicken at Root & Bone has a lemony finish.Photo: Lauren J. Kaplan
They met in 2010 when Booth walked into Gigi, a Miami restaurant that McInnis had just helped launch. Freshly arrived from Perth, Australia, to attend Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Miami, she asked to speak with him in regard to a school paper she needed to write. But McInnis was too busy. So Booth ordered the short-rib meatloaf and dined with friends.
Root & BonePhoto: Root & Bone
Later that night, she returned and ordered another serving of the dish. This time McInnis chatted her up. Days later, says McInnis, "She came and worked for me [interning at first]. She had natural talent. It was awesome: A beautiful young girl in the kitchen, doing great and for free. It was a nice little package."
Janine went on to become a full-time cook at Gigi, but the two didn't become romantically involved for years. In the interim, McInnis married, had a daughter and divorced. Though both are hesitant to go into details on the timeline of it all,
McInnis says they didn't begin dating until after divorce papers were filed.
The chemistry between the two chefs is clearly apparent. She absently rubs her fingers along his thigh as they talk, and while he's clearly more verbose than she is, McInnis continually draws Booth into the conversation.
On the job, they tag-team between various responsibilities in Root & Bone's tiny open kitchen: one might oversee the orders as they come in, while the other handles a sauté station. Booth often arrives early on the weekends to set up things for brunch and McInnis will stay late into the night. While they might have the occasional disagreement in the kitchen, they say that ultimately working so closely is a boon.
Root & BonePhoto: Brian Zak
"If you're a chef who works until 3 a.m. and your wife is, say, a nurse, you don't get to see each other a lot," he says. "Ninety-nine percent of the chefs I know have a problem with that."
Their cooking styles are compatible too. "My style of cooking is lighter [than that of McInnis]. I like to let fruits and vegetables fly," Booth says. "Jeff is more about the heavier ingredients."
Their blend of styles is evident on the restaurant's menu, where a Southern peach caprese salad features both heirloom tomatoes and delicately grilled peaches as well as a decadent ball of fried pimento cheese. But the star of the menu is definitely the chicken.
Recognizing that New York City is saturated in stellar fried chicken, McInnis and Booth knew they had to do something really special in order to shine. Having helped found the Miami restaurant Yardbird, where fried chicken gets taken pretty seriously, McInnis dug down to his Southern roots for inspiration.
He and Booth came up with an approach that combines modern equipment with Dixie ingenuity. They begin by brining their chicken in a mixture that includes sweetened iced tea — along with the usual ingredients such as sugar, salt, bay leaves, and pepper. Then each piece of the bird gets covered in spiced flour before being cooked in a pressure fryer, a special fryer that helps push moisture to the center of the chicken pieces. Once fried to perfection, the chicken gets a critical sprinkling of dehydrated powdered lemon.
"Originally, we were going to do three kinds of chicken," recalls McInnis. "Then Janine and I tasted this and decided that it was all we needed."
New York may be best know for pizza, but the city's fried chicken tradition is no upstart. Here are three places that helped the rend really earn its wings:
Blue Ribbon (97 Sullivan St.)
Blue RibbonPhoto: Steve Hill
After 22 years, the Bromberg brothers' take on yardbird is legendary. With its distinctive matzo meal crust, the skin is so crispy that one bite can be heard from a neighboring table.
The menu staple has grown into its own outpost, Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken, which opened a year ago in the Lower East Side.
Momofuku Noodle Bar (171 First Ave.)
Momofuku Noodle BarPhoto: Imogen Brown
In 2009, Chef David Chang introduced his fried chicken feasts done in two styles — Southern American and Korean — and set off a feeding frenzy that required booking reservations a month in advance.
The meal, meant for 4-8 diners and costing $125 for two whole birds (above), comes with four dipping sauces and mu shu pancakes. It must be reserved online in advance and is only available certain days and times.
Charles Country Pan Fried Chicken (2839 Frederick Douglass Blvd.)
Charles Southern KitchenPhoto: Jennifer Weisbord
In Harlem, there is no shortage of soul-food spots, but those looking specifically for great fried chicken venture way uptown to chef Charles Gabriel's buffet.
Here, Gabriel has been serving up his famed perfectly-salty bird for 20 years, using a meticulous pan-flip that yields crispy-on-the-outside, juicy-on-the-inside perfection.
- Jozen Cummings
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