Fried Chicken and Champagne

Southern Fried Chicken with Vintage 2008 Dom Perignon (with Hot Honey Sauce on the side)

Fried chicken? Sure. Champagne? Absolutely. Fried chicken and Champagne? Hell yeah.

There is a special part of the culinary arts devoted to pairings. We see it all the time with wine and charcuterie, steak and red wine, and, where I’m from in the South, even chicken and beer. But what about beloved, crispy, perfectly seasoned fried chicken? What beverage would be so lucky to pair with her? If you ask me, it’s a nicely chilled Brut.

Dare I say rosé.

It sounds a little unexpected until you actually put the two together. Fried chicken is hot, salty, crisp, and rich. Champagne is cold, bright and bubbly, cutting through all of that goodness just in time for you to take another bite. They shouldn’t look this good sitting next to each other, but they do. Champagne gets ceremony. Fried chicken gets a paper towel. I happen to think there is room for both on the same table.

For this particular table, I brought out a bottle of Dom Pérignon Vintage 2008 that I bought duty-free in London years ago. And before anyone panics, no, I did not open it with the chicken. Not yet. The 2008 is considered an exceptional Champagne vintage and a bottle made to age, so mine can wait a little longer. Still, I loved seeing a bottle with that kind of history sitting next to a platter of fried chicken. Not because the chicken needed dressing up. It didn’t. One spent years becoming Champagne. The other spent about 14 minutes in hot grease. I respect them equally.

That may explain why this pairing feels so natural to me. I love beautiful restaurants, good china, proper glassware and a thoughtfully set table. I also love fried chicken straight from the pan while I’m still cooking the rest of it. As my world in food has grown, so has my table. Restaurants, travel, chefs, wine, culture, fashion, business, and the stories behind all of it interest me just as much as what is on the plate.

Food has never existed by itself for me. It carries culture, memory, travel, style, business, family, and occasionally a little gossip if you have good friends. It gives us somewhere to gather while all the interesting parts of life happen around it. That is how a plate of fried chicken and a bottle of Champagne became something larger than dinner, and eventually, the perfect name for the kind of table I wanted to create.

So I fried the chicken, chilled the Champagne, and figured we might as well start the conversation.

Welcome to Fried Chicken & Champagne.