Popcorn chicken? It’s served in a popcorn popper at the new BlackHen in Old City
BlackHen, from restaurateur Felicia Wilson and chef Darryl Harmon, is taking creative leaps with traditional fried chicken and sides, from charcoal chicken sandwiches to $50 ice cream floats
Felicia Wilson and chef Darryl Harmon, enjoying success with their two-year-old Old City restaurant, Amina, set out to open a fried chicken shop on the same block.
Then they thought: Why just a fried chicken shop? “We decided to upscale it a little bit,” Wilson said.
At BlackHen, a 40-seat BYOB that opens 6 p.m. Saturday at 120 Chestnut St., they’re putting extravagant spins on classic comfort dishes.
Order the Pop Rock’n Chicken, and a red West Bend popcorn popper will be delivered to the table. Inside are crispy popcorn chicken bites dipped in a sweet-and-spicy sauce alongside ranch-flavored popcorn. (“We bought like 20 of these,” Wilson said.) Request an ice cream float, and they’ll bring out a small cabinet filled with dry ice, vanilla ice cream, and four different flavored sodas: black cherry, orange, grape, and root beer. You select a soda, pour it over the ice cream, and get steamy TikTok-worthy visuals for your 50 bucks. The waffles, sandwich rolls, ice cream cones, and maple syrup are black, from activated charcoal. So is the vanilla ice cream used in the float.
The menu is full of this kind of stuff. The day starts with brunch from 10 a.m. (including pancakes, bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches, French toast), and segues into dinner from 3 p.m. Closing time on weekends will be 3 a.m.
Chef Issaka Fofana is executing Harmon’s menu, starting with his family-tested fried chicken. Deviled eggs are garnished with fried chicken skins. Sides include fried green tomatoes, fried pickles, mac and cheese, collard greens with smoked turkey, candied sweet potato hash, and “soul slaw.”
Chicken cheesesteak beignets are a riff on the cheesesteak beignets served at Amina. Bite into one, and you get a flavor bomb of chicken, cheese fondue, sweet peppers, and root-beer caramelized onions.
Other options include smoked pulled chicken. Among vegan items is a crispy hen of the woods mushroom sandwich with avocado, shredded lettuce, tomato, and hot cherry pepper glaze.
Desserts include fried Oreos, tin can banana pudding, hand pies, and an ice cream float made with cherry soda and topped with gold designed to serve four people.
BlackHen slyly continues Wilson’s run of restaurants named for African themes and powerful women: She named her daughter (and the restaurant) Amina after the 16th-century warrior queen of what is now Nigeria; her next restaurant, due to open midyear on Ben Franklin Parkway, will be called Avana, which means “beautiful flower” in Swahili; and BlackHen is “literally ‘the woman chicken,’” she said.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to midnight on Sundays, with a fried chicken brunch offered between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.