“Come to the barbecue and sit by my side
“We couldn’t choose a better night if we tried
“Can’t you imagine what a thrill it will be
“Pickin’ a chicken with me!” ”“ “Pickin”™ a Chicken” by Paddy Roberts, Derek Bernfield and Garfield de Mortimer
There”™s a certain confidence, arrogance or madness about opening a restaurant that essentially serves only one type of dish. Yes, you could argue, pizzerias only sell pizza, taquerias only sell tacos and the frozen yogurt store sells only, well, frozen yogurt, and I”™d have to concede you”™d have a point. But chicken is somehow different. You must not only be in the mood for protein, for meat, but for a particular kind of meat ”“ chicken. Kind of limiting.
But happily, that culinary staple ”“ which outlives all foodie fads and sees off the competition time and again ”“ is indeed just what I”™m in the mood for as I head to Wildacre Rotisserie, the month-old chicken dine-in and takeout restaurant in Cos Cob, on the enviable site of a former Starbucks, right on a bank facing the steely-blue, fast-flowing Mianus River. Actually, it”™s been opened by a Starbuck”™s alumnus, the coffee behemoth”™s former head of culinary innovation, Ben Pote, who brings not only 15 years of “cooking, learning and problem-solving” to his new venture, but also inspiration for fresh and healthy food from his time living and working in California. Honestly, even if you had a Michelin-starred restaurant on this site, regardless of the food, people would come from all over the county and even farther afield for the view alone.
I was a customer of the old Starbuck”™s ”“ my kids used to get their haircuts across the street ”“ and where before you would literally smell the coffee in the small parking lot in front of the building, now you smell the gravy. And although usually I never want to smell actual food or cooking inside a restaurant, I rather love the smell of good food as you approach ”“a harbinger of what”™s to come, if that doesn”™t sound contradictory. And here the smell is appetite-whetting, I would say.
Once inside, with just six tables and a handful of black ladder-back chairs, several long benches and a great amount of blond wood, the space has a sort of contemporary schoolroom feel to it. There is a wall of striking, glazed green tiles, and light streams in on three and a half sides. The river view, as I mentioned, is peerless.
From the short, concise menu, which could hardly be more straightforward, you order and pay at the long counter. A quarter, half or whole slow-roasted rotisserie chicken is the main event, with the option to turn the unaccompanied bird into a “meal,” which means you get sauces and a choice of side dishes ”“ coleslaw, Brussel sprouts, potatoes, a small salad, etc., to go with it. There are also five salads and wraps, all chicken-centric, and that”™s about it really.
We ordered a half-chicken meal with salsa verde and garlic Dijonnaise, with sides of cauliflower and Brussels and cans of achingly on-trend yuzu and calamansi sparkling water to go with it. Unasked for, aforementioned owner Ben ”“ who is usually to be found behind the counter, and whom we recognized from his website photo ”“ brought over a carafe of tap water and two glasses. A nice touch.
The chicken had a tanned crisp skin and a real rotisserie flavor, the dark meat moist and the white meat juicy and flavorful. It”™s a hard thing to do, cooking birds en masse to the perfect point of doneness, the trick always not to overcook. (Interesting point here: The Chinese never overcook their chicken, which is why Chinese chicken tastes so darn good, but they are less concerned with health and safety than we are and will consume a bird just seconds after it has turned creamy white from being pink.) A wonderfully fresh and well-assembled Pacifica salad became more rewarding the deeper we dug, with each layer revealing something new, but the “roti” potatoes, with rotisserie dripping and parsley, while perfectly nice, didn”™t deliver the crispness we”™d hoped for. Mind you, I set a high bar. (For the world”™s crunchiest roast potatoes, come over to my place any Sunday lunchtime.)
The honey Dijon sauce is Wildacre”™s most popular, but I rather enjoyed the salsa verde, capers and lemon juice having a particular affinity with chicken.
The restaurant really lends itself to takeout ”“ at least half a dozen people came in to pick up orders while we were eating ”“ and, although this column doesn”™t usually get too much into price, Wildacre is so reasonable you could bring 10 hungry people for dinner, they could eat their fill of chicken and sides and you”™d get change from $200.
Years ago, when I lived in Spain and would come home in the proverbial wee small hours of the morning after a night discoing on the Costa del Sol, we would pull over at a spot called Pollo Stop just off the highway as the sun was coming up. It was a shack with a grill, simple as anything, but the taste of that chicken has never left me. Wildacre, in all its shiny newness, with its QR codes and fancy contactless payment, could hardly be a more different setup. But that great chicken taste ”“ that is something special when you find it. And it”™s something the Pollo Stop of old and Wildacre of new have in common.
For more, visit wildacrerotisserie.com.
