The last time I was in Buffalo, N.Y., my hair caught fire in a botched effort to down a flaming Dr Pepper shot at Mulligan’s Brick Bar. The only other thing I remember from that weekend is the chicken wings: flaming hot and particularly good with cheap beer. But what makes this quintessential football food so important to its hometown?
Andy Denne, chef at Allen Street Hardware, a rather perfect bar and restaurant in the historic Allentown district, had a few answers. Denne is a Buffalo native and a journeyman chef, but only on special occasions does he whip up wings, making him a neutral insider in the wing wars.
I called him to ask if it was worth making a winter trek to his city for Buffalo wings.
“First of all, we just call them wings, and I wouldn’t eat wings anywhere outside of western New York state,” he said. “C’mon up, man!”
***
We met on Main Street at Frank and Teressa’s Anchor Bar, which is, slightly debatably, where wings were invented. The gist of the most common folk history is that the bartender’s drunken friends came in late one night in 1964 looking for something to ward off a pending hangover. All Teressa had in the fridge were some wings, hot sauce and butter.
“Truth is, nobody wants to admit how simple making wings is,” said Denne, while ordering a few. “There’s no secret. You deep fry ’em ’til they’re cooked, then toss ’em in hot sauce and butter.”
At one of his former restaurants, Denne came up with his own hot sauce: one part pureed chipotles in adobo sauce, one part Dijon mustard, two parts honey. If he’s feeling frisky, his preferred dressing recipe features Maytag Blue cheese, buttermilk, red wine vinegar, mayo and sour cream.
“They’re sweet, but the hot grows on you,” he said, grinning.
“I’m not going to eat too many — I’ve got a date,” he said, a position he maintained until the wings arrived, at which point he noted, “Those look awesome.”
My first unshakable thought was that the wings tasted like college — a time warp back to drunken nights of cooking up a batch in my fraternity house. It was impossible to take notes and eat wings at the same time. The skin was crispy, the wings plump. The heat, pleasant on the first wing, began to numb my lips, making the top of my head sweat and my nose run.
“I want crispy skin, moist meat and a ‘good hot’ with the right amount of heat, and a good blue-cheese dressing. These,” Denne said, sounding surprised he was saying this about the Anchor Bar, “are just about perfect.”
“Main Street used to be on the stagecoach route to New York,” said Mark Goldman, owner of Allen Street Hardware and author of three books on Buffalo. It “was like the Maginot Line, and this Italian couple — Frank and Teressa — opened their bar in the middle of it in 1935,” he explained. “Wings drew on black soul food traditions, and the Anchor was about the only place where black and white mixed.”
Later that night, Denne put me in the hands of Valerie Meli, who founded HeadStone Heat hot sauce in late 2010.
We piled into her 1980s-era silver Volvo wagon and headed to the outer reaches of wingdom — to North Buffalo’s Papa Jake’s, a neighborhood bar like the one where the cops from your favorite crime series drown their sorrows.
“Good bar. Good service. Good wings. Clean,” said Meli, explaining her criteria while ordering.
The basics, according to Meli: “You can make wings as complicated as you want, but they really aren’t.” Each “wing” is actually one of two parts — the drumstick-like “drumette” and the two-boned “flat” — and most everyone here has a preference for one or the other. Wings can be ordered with heat ranging from mild to “suicide,” but few here like their wings to be drowning in sauce, and even fewer endorse the idea that they should be breaded.
Dunking the wings directly in the blue cheese creates a sweet, hot, juicy, acidic, crispy, decadent mouthful, no less noble than crisp pork belly or foie gras, and it’s not a faux pas.
Next up: Kelly’s Korner, a couple of blocks away, where there’s a shuffleboard bowling table just inside the door and the fleeting feeling that you might get mugged. Two bouncer-sized men, one named T.C., sat down next to us and offered us a shot of Jameson.
We tucked into a bowl and they were good, with crazy-crisp skin, a moist interior and a particularly meaty flavor.
“Know why they’re better?” asked Meli, leaning in, “They’re fatter.”
She leaned her head above the bowl and inhaled like a hot-sauce sommelier.
“It’s a Frank’s base,” she said, noting the semi-ubiquitous sauce that gives wings here their kick. “And there’s probably a bit of chili powder and garlic salt.”
“There’s no way you can eat wings without heat. Capsaicin — the heat in the pepper — gets you going,” she said. “You eat a couple and — woooh! — that heat builds!”
We ate a few more, then pounded the shot that T.C. sent over, sending the heat at the backs of our throats into overdrive. We retreated to a slug of Genesee Cream Ale before dunking our veggies into Kelly’s blue-cheese dressing.
“If someplace ever gives you ranch dressing, throw that s*** against the wall!” counseled T.C.
We directed the bartender to fill T.C.’s “I Support Single Moms” shot glass, rolled out, and I made a beeline for my hotel room.
The next day, in the newly opened kitchen of the DBGB bar, Denne introduced me to chef Kevin Lobene and his wings. Lobene shakes it up a bit by making his hot wings with sriracha chili sauce and honey. Lobene goes for the long bomb with his dry-rubbed wings, which he smokes for 4½ hours before coating them with barbecue sauce and tossing them on the grill, creating a wing with deep, smoky flavors and a crisp exterior.
Why mess with the classics?
“I want to progress the scene. Besides,” said Lobene, “you’ve gotta keep yourself entertained.”
Denne had another date approaching, but he seemed to have forgotten his self-imposed wing limit. When Meli stopped in, she recalled an important rule of wingdom.
“You’ve gotta share wings. When you get an order, you get an order to share. In the end, you use it as an excuse to get together. ‘I need to party’; ‘I need to be consoled’; ‘I need a shoulder to cry on’; ‘I need to celebrate.’ When you’re asked, the proper response is always, ‘All right! Let’s go get some wings.’ ”
Joe Ray is a food and travel writer and photographer based in Brooklyn.
Andy Denne, chef at Allen Street Hardware, a rather perfect bar and restaurant in the historic Allentown district, had a few answers. Denne is a Buffalo native and a journeyman chef, but only on special occasions does he whip up wings, making him a neutral insider in the wing wars.
I called him to ask if it was worth making a winter trek to his city for Buffalo wings.
“First of all, we just call them wings, and I wouldn’t eat wings anywhere outside of western New York state,” he said. “C’mon up, man!”
***
We met on Main Street at Frank and Teressa’s Anchor Bar, which is, slightly debatably, where wings were invented. The gist of the most common folk history is that the bartender’s drunken friends came in late one night in 1964 looking for something to ward off a pending hangover. All Teressa had in the fridge were some wings, hot sauce and butter.
“Truth is, nobody wants to admit how simple making wings is,” said Denne, while ordering a few. “There’s no secret. You deep fry ’em ’til they’re cooked, then toss ’em in hot sauce and butter.”
At one of his former restaurants, Denne came up with his own hot sauce: one part pureed chipotles in adobo sauce, one part Dijon mustard, two parts honey. If he’s feeling frisky, his preferred dressing recipe features Maytag Blue cheese, buttermilk, red wine vinegar, mayo and sour cream.
“They’re sweet, but the hot grows on you,” he said, grinning.
“I’m not going to eat too many — I’ve got a date,” he said, a position he maintained until the wings arrived, at which point he noted, “Those look awesome.”
My first unshakable thought was that the wings tasted like college — a time warp back to drunken nights of cooking up a batch in my fraternity house. It was impossible to take notes and eat wings at the same time. The skin was crispy, the wings plump. The heat, pleasant on the first wing, began to numb my lips, making the top of my head sweat and my nose run.
“I want crispy skin, moist meat and a ‘good hot’ with the right amount of heat, and a good blue-cheese dressing. These,” Denne said, sounding surprised he was saying this about the Anchor Bar, “are just about perfect.”
“Main Street used to be on the stagecoach route to New York,” said Mark Goldman, owner of Allen Street Hardware and author of three books on Buffalo. It “was like the Maginot Line, and this Italian couple — Frank and Teressa — opened their bar in the middle of it in 1935,” he explained. “Wings drew on black soul food traditions, and the Anchor was about the only place where black and white mixed.”
Later that night, Denne put me in the hands of Valerie Meli, who founded HeadStone Heat hot sauce in late 2010.
We piled into her 1980s-era silver Volvo wagon and headed to the outer reaches of wingdom — to North Buffalo’s Papa Jake’s, a neighborhood bar like the one where the cops from your favorite crime series drown their sorrows.
“Good bar. Good service. Good wings. Clean,” said Meli, explaining her criteria while ordering.
The basics, according to Meli: “You can make wings as complicated as you want, but they really aren’t.” Each “wing” is actually one of two parts — the drumstick-like “drumette” and the two-boned “flat” — and most everyone here has a preference for one or the other. Wings can be ordered with heat ranging from mild to “suicide,” but few here like their wings to be drowning in sauce, and even fewer endorse the idea that they should be breaded.
Dunking the wings directly in the blue cheese creates a sweet, hot, juicy, acidic, crispy, decadent mouthful, no less noble than crisp pork belly or foie gras, and it’s not a faux pas.
Next up: Kelly’s Korner, a couple of blocks away, where there’s a shuffleboard bowling table just inside the door and the fleeting feeling that you might get mugged. Two bouncer-sized men, one named T.C., sat down next to us and offered us a shot of Jameson.
We tucked into a bowl and they were good, with crazy-crisp skin, a moist interior and a particularly meaty flavor.
“Know why they’re better?” asked Meli, leaning in, “They’re fatter.”
She leaned her head above the bowl and inhaled like a hot-sauce sommelier.
“It’s a Frank’s base,” she said, noting the semi-ubiquitous sauce that gives wings here their kick. “And there’s probably a bit of chili powder and garlic salt.”
“There’s no way you can eat wings without heat. Capsaicin — the heat in the pepper — gets you going,” she said. “You eat a couple and — woooh! — that heat builds!”
We ate a few more, then pounded the shot that T.C. sent over, sending the heat at the backs of our throats into overdrive. We retreated to a slug of Genesee Cream Ale before dunking our veggies into Kelly’s blue-cheese dressing.
“If someplace ever gives you ranch dressing, throw that s*** against the wall!” counseled T.C.
We directed the bartender to fill T.C.’s “I Support Single Moms” shot glass, rolled out, and I made a beeline for my hotel room.
The next day, in the newly opened kitchen of the DBGB bar, Denne introduced me to chef Kevin Lobene and his wings. Lobene shakes it up a bit by making his hot wings with sriracha chili sauce and honey. Lobene goes for the long bomb with his dry-rubbed wings, which he smokes for 4½ hours before coating them with barbecue sauce and tossing them on the grill, creating a wing with deep, smoky flavors and a crisp exterior.
Why mess with the classics?
“I want to progress the scene. Besides,” said Lobene, “you’ve gotta keep yourself entertained.”
Denne had another date approaching, but he seemed to have forgotten his self-imposed wing limit. When Meli stopped in, she recalled an important rule of wingdom.
“You’ve gotta share wings. When you get an order, you get an order to share. In the end, you use it as an excuse to get together. ‘I need to party’; ‘I need to be consoled’; ‘I need a shoulder to cry on’; ‘I need to celebrate.’ When you’re asked, the proper response is always, ‘All right! Let’s go get some wings.’ ”
Joe Ray is a food and travel writer and photographer based in Brooklyn.
