Chicken Society is a large, on-trend casual restaurant in the heart of Central Finchley, less than 100 yards from the tube station, and right behind a bus stop serving a number of local routes.
Open a year this December, it was launched with the aim of sharing the owners’ “love of all things chicken“.
Inside is all wooden floors and tables, exposed brickwork, neon quips about chicken and a whole bunch of chicken-themed wall-art. It’s colourful and welcoming and feels familiar even though it’s our first visit. There are comfy booths, and a range of tables with both chairs and stools, so make sure you specify if it’s important to you — I bloody hate stools, but I appreciate that’s a personal bugbear.
Our first order was the starter portion of Boneless Buttermilk Fried Chicken in Hot Korean-style BBQ sauce (£5). I love Korean chicken wings — moist chicken inside a crunchy fried coating and slathered in hot spicy sauce, what’s not to like? — but I’ve heard from more than one restaurateur that Britons are moving away from chicken-on-the-bone in their droves. So these boneless morsels, treated in the same way, are a good compromise and of course, are much easier to eat too. We enjoyed these, the texture and flavour were decent enough, and they’d make a great beer snack.
Pulled chicken nachos served with crushed avocado, melted smoked cheese and yogurt [sic] (£6) were better than I expected. The first brownie points were awarded for frying their nachos in-house and serving them hot, crisp and delicious fresh from the fryer, the rest of the points were given for the decent ratio of cheese to nachos, and enough cooling yoghurt and avocado dips not to run out after dipping only half the nachos.
The Southern Fried Chicken Quarter (£5.50) is a generous portion for 1 (with sides to be ordered separately). Mine came just a little over-cooked so the coating was overly brown, particularly on one of the two pieces. But the chicken inside was still superbly moist (thanks to being cooked by sous vide and then finished in the fryer) and the flavour of the coating, had it not been a touch over, was very much along the colonel’s line.
Pete went for a main size serving of the Boneless Buttermilk Fried Chicken (£9), this time in a Sweet & smoky BBQ sauce w/ blue cheese dip. Like the Korean-style ones, the texture was great. The in-house smoky BBQ was very generic in flavour, but perfectly decent, especially with the blue cheese dip.
Spiralised fried courgetti with lime and yogurt [sic] (£3) were fantastic, spiralised thinly, resulting in a really high crunchy batter to veg ratio. Simple but ever so good.
We also liked the broccoli with miso and sesame (£3.75) which was definitely the healthier of the two, but still packed with deliciousness.
For dessert, we went for the brownie of the day with ice cream (£5). The plain brownie was very rich and super fudgy, and the fruitiness of the raspberry ripple ice cream we chose was perfect with it – we ate way more of this than we thought we had space to eat when we ordered!
Chicken Society is a fun, family-friendly and affordable restaurant offering a short and sweet menu designed to appeal to a wide base. While it may not win any awards for best food in London the food is pleasant enough. It’s the perfect place to hit with family and friends for a casual, well-priced meal and the location makes it very easy for locals.
Kavey Eats dined as review guests of Chicken Society.
Please leave a comment - I love hearing from you!3 Comments to "Chicken Society | Casual Chook in Central Finchley"
I love your posts. They always make me so hungry. Love chicken so will have to visit.
I always have time for chicken! You had me at sticky BBQ wings with blue cheese dip – mouthwatering!
I love the idea of visiting a chicken only restaurant. With me not having dairy & Jonny not liking any seafood, it’s often a struggle for us both to order directly from a menu without having to make a tonne of alterations. However I reckon we’d both be very happy here!