Hot Chicken in Nashville

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Hot chicken is a Nashville specialty. Fried chicken breaded and coated with spices, typically heavy on the cayenne. Served with some white bread and pickles, Nashville hot chicken lights up the senses. Some restaurants are specifically hot chicken joints, and some offer it as a menu item among dishes. It's hard to eat anywhere in Nashville without hot chicken making some kind of appearance - in the traditional way with bread and pickles, on a salad, in a pasta, or even with a malted waffle for brunch. You cannot leave Music City without a taste of hot chicken.
How Hot? courtesy of our friends at Nashville Lifestyles magazine.

Find out "How Hot Chicken Became Nashville's Signature Dish" by Time.

Edley’s Bar-B-Que

12South
615-953-2951
Edley's is known for bar-b-que but Mondays have become quite popular as they offer their Hot Chicken special. Get a platter with the spicy bird, a sandwich complete with tangy coleslaw on top, or hot chicken nachos. Stay a while and play trivia - every Monday. Diners can eat lunch or dinner by the open garage-door walls or on the patio, while they can grab a drink from the bar.
How Hot?: Depends on the day. You get what they make - maybe it'll clear your sinuses, maybe it'll singe your lips.
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Hattie B’s Hot Chicken

Midtown
615-678-4794
A new Midtown restaurant specializing in the fiery, molten poultry specialty, also offers many local, craft beers that pair well with poultry and spicy foods. Side options include Southern greens, red-skin potato salad, and a piquant salad of black-eyed peas.
How Hot?: Noted for having a slightly sweeter batter than other hot chickens, with heat levels that range from a spiceless “Southern” to insanely spicy “Damned Hot” and “Shut the Cluck Up” (those last two were made in response to customers’ demands to up the pain).

Scoreboard Smokehouse Bar & Grill

Opryland/Music Valley
615-883-3866
Hot chicken is a Scoreboard specialty, offering a bone-in breast, boneless breast bites, and hand-cut tenders. Scoreboard's hot chicken was featured on Food Network show "Heat Seekers".
How Hot?: The famous chicken comes in Sissy, Mild, Medium, Hot, and Satan's Tongue levels of hotness.
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400 Degrees

Downtown – SoBro
615-244-4467
400 Degrees' top-secret recipe engages varying amounts of cayenne and paprika, depending on the level of heat requested. You can get 0° for regular fried chicken; 100° for mild; 200° for medium; 400° for hot. Daily sides are crinkle-cut fries (which get a dusting of paprika and a whisper of cayenne), baked beans, coleslaw and potato salad. The chicken is similar to Prince’s in flavor, though the crust is a little thicker. The chief difference is that 400° is deep-fried, not skillet-fried. The 200° version is feisty, with an elevated level of heat that leaves no doubt you’re eating classic hot chicken; the 400° is surprisingly manageable, offering a real kick on the tongue but without the lingering, impossible-to-dissipate burn that the hottest versions sometimes deliver.
How Hot?: Owner Aqui Simpson smiles angelically as she serves devilish sandwiches at heat levels that range from 0° (no spice), 100° (mild), 200° (medium) all the way up to a 400° heat level that will challenge Prince’s hottest offering.

Bolton’s Spicy Chicken and Fish

8th Avenue
615-254-8015
Bolton’s serves a fine example of hot chicken, has its own legions of fans, and offers an additional option of another traditional Nashville culinary treat, hot fish sandwiches.
How Hot?: Spice levels are generally acknowledged to be slightly tamer than Prince’s; they also use a drier spice coating than Prince’s lardy rub.

Pepperfire Hot Chicken

East Nashville
615-582-4824
Not only is Pepperfire great for carryout, they also have an excellent online ordering system. And, since they only have a couple of picnic tables for eating in, it’s best to get it to go.
How Hot?: The hot fried chicken tenders are ladled with a piquant sauce that ranges from merely hot to excruciating. Try them on the Tender Royale, a deep-fried grilled peppercheese sandwich.

Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack

East Nashville
615-226-9442
Not to be confused with Buffalo wings, the signature dish is typically a cut of chicken marinated in buttermilk, breaded and then sauced using a super-secret paste spiced with cayenne peppers to bring the heat. After being pan-fried in a cast iron skillet, it's served up with a couple of slices of white bread. Temperatures range from mild, medium, hot to extra hot. Fair warning: even the mild packs a serious punch. And for first timers, don't even try ordering the hot. They won't sell it to you.
How Hot?: The gold standard by which all fiery fowl is measured. Runs from mild (which is not) to extra hot which will burn you twice. Rookies are encouraged to start no hotter than medium until their cast-iron stomach quotient is determined.