Luke O’Connell-
Sandwiched between The Boilerhouse (Google it, but not in the library) and a “private gentlemen’s club” is not somewhere one would imagine KFC opening a new outlet, but who are we to judge? And this is not KFC. “Crackbird,” I thought to myself. “What a trendy name.” And I was right. Joe Macken’s new limited-edition restaurant in Temple Bar is as trendy as they come. It plans to remain open for no longer than 12 weeks apparently, more than likely because it’s arguably a novelty niche and man cannot live on chicken alone. Or maybe it is because hipsters will be extinct by then.
With the same manager as Rathmines’ superb Jo’Burger, it was never going to be a pipe of Popcorn Chicken that was on offer here. Much has been reported about the ‘#tweetseats’, where a large table is reserved for the self-obsessed users of Twitter who can dine for free if they are lucky. For everyone else, it’s standard restaurant procedure.
My co-diner John, with whom, fate had decided, I would share a whole chicken that evening, for better or worse, until bone do us part, appropriately enough styles himself somewhat on King Henry VIII, with the kind of red hair that is an endangered species this side of the Shannon. I say ‘appropriately’ because Henry famously loved southern-fried-chicken and even dressed sort of like a proto-hipster, if you stare at him long enough. John was literally drooling at the prospect of an expenses-paid bucket of chicken and luckily we didn’t have to wait at all to get a table. It would be easy to be mean about the decor and atmosphere about the place, but I won’t be, because it genuinely works and is refreshingly unpretentious. Also, it reportedly cost less than €15,000 in total to set up, and still looks great.
The menu is so spot-on that you wish every restaurant discarded 90% of their humdrum offerings. Quality over quantity, etc. If I want a smorgasbord of options of dishes that taste identical, I’ll go to my local Chinese. Here, the only real choices were half- and full-bird (for one or two people, respectively) chickens in two styles. We split a “Skillet fried buttermilk chicken” for €17.95 (the other option was “Super crisp soy garlic”) with a €1 “Burnt lemon and whipped feta” sauce. Wings by the dozen and “chicken-crunch” appetisers were also available, as well as €3.75 salad sides, and that was about it. The drinks menu was equally impressive, with very reasonably priced and attractive-sounding freshly made juices. I got a lime-ginger spritzer (€2.50) which must have been well over the size of a pint. And it was fucking delicious.
Speaking of fucking delicious, our chicken arrived in a bucket not long afterwards, carved up and ready to be gnawed and sucked upon like hungry perverts. The lemon and feta sauce was gorgeous and the crispy batter made my mother’s roast chicken seem like a waste of time. It was a tremendously satisfying feed altogether.
If I had to make one negative point, it would be the obvious one: why are there no chips on the menu? I can guess what their response would be. As Henry Ford said, “You can have any colour you like as long as it’s chicken.” It’s fair enough – you go to Crackbird to get chicken and, fuck me, they give you chicken.
4.5/5
