What: A fried chicken concept in East London’s Spitalfields Market. The capital is not short of chicken shops, but Fortune Fried Chicken is one of just a handful to offer Bangkok-style fried chicken, which sees birds marinated in aromatics before being coated with rice flour and slowly deep-fried.
Who: Fortune Fried Chicken is a collaboration between restaurateur Harneet Baweja and chef Jane Alty. Baweja is the founder of Indian small plates restaurant Gunpowder and is also behind Notting Hill’s Empire Empire, Paris-born bakery brand Moi & Toi and Master Jackie, a Chinese restaurant in Kolkata named after film star Jackie Chan. Alty, meanwhile, is best known for founding top Peckham Thai restaurant The Begging Bowl (she left last summer after 12 years behind the stove). Her cooking CV also includes Bibendum, Racine and the Bangkok iteration of David Thompson’s iconic Thai fine dining restaurant Nahm.
The food: Fortune Fried Chicken offers a tight menu that includes burgers, tenders, whole chickens, rice bowls and salad. Sides include spiced ‘shake shake’ fries, sticky rice and som tam while dips include sweet chilli, spicy green chilli, lime and chilli and a tamarind-based sauce inspired by nam jim jaew. Baweja says that he and Alty have spent months in a test kitchen perfecting their fried chicken recipe. Their effort has paid off: deep fried with finely sliced shallots and garlic, the chicken is aromatic - the marinade includes soy, fish sauce, garlic, coriander and, one suspects, a little MSG - juicy and very moreish.
To drink: The short drinks menus includes Thai and locally-brewed beers from Dalston’s 40FT alongside homemade lemonade and tea.
The vibe: Trading from a market stall, Fortune Fried Chicken has simple red branding that has been designed to evoke the street food stalls of Thailand’s capital. Food can be ordered in person or via click-and-collect to eat within Spitalfields Market (there’s no seating as such but there’s plenty available nearby) or taken away. It can also be ordered via Deliveroo.
And another thing: According to the team, Fortune Fried Chicken is bedding in nicely, appealing to both the office lunch crowd - who tend to go for burgers, salads and rice boxes - and the post work drinks crowd, who are more likely to go big with a whole fried chicken and all the sides.
Old Spitalfields Market, 59 Brushfield St, London E1 6AA