The global appeal of Nashville hot chicken

After high school, Chen Chen moved away to Toronto. Nashville hot chicken wasn’t big on his radar growing up, but he patronized the one place serving his hometown’s specialty.

“They put a little bit of spicy seasoning on it and called it Nashville hot chicken,” he said. “I was a little bit offended. I was like, ‘this is not Nashville hot chicken.’”

At the time, Chen was looking for business opportunities and didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. So he went to a year of business school where he wrote up his business plan, then attended a year of culinary school and worked in a restaurant kitchen before launching Chen Chen’s Nashville Hot Chicken in Toronto. It took off from there, becoming Yelp’s top spot in Canada in 2024.

This summer, he opened a location in Nashville — a city so saturated in hot chicken that people are putting their own spin on it. In its original form, the dish is a bone-in chicken breast, battered and fried then dipped in a spicy oil so hot it makes your nose run. It’s served on a piece of white bread and topped with a few pickle slices. To stand out in the crowded space, Chen offers a Chinese Szechuan spice option.

As many do, Chen pays his respects to the place credited with starting it all: Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack. The restaurant has been around since 1945. Chen went on his first pilgrimage as a teen.

“My buddy took me to Prince’s. I ate the hottest chicken there,” he told WPLN News. “I was a spice fanatic at the time. It definitely hurt me, but I loved it.”

Connoisseurs will travel long distances for the pain and pleasure combo. The chicken is so hot that people describe the feeling as almost a drug-induced high. And they relish the story of it being first made in a lover’s quarrel. A woman was trying to punish Mr. Prince with hot pepper. Turns out, he liked it.

“My mother always said when I was growing up, if you have what the world wants, they will beat a path to your door. And that has proven to be right,” said Andre Prince, who still helps run the family business.

Nashville hot chicken has gone worldwide since Marketplace’s first story about peppered poultry in 2010. That piece was about fast-food chains inspired by this local delicacy to crank up the spice. It helped bring attention to Prince’s and other old guard purveyors.

“Just Saturday, we had people there from Iceland, and I couldn't believe it,” Prince said.

What’s more notable than the passports of her patrons is how many have tried to take her dish back home.

There are now nearly 2,400 restaurants worldwide serving Nashville hot chicken, according to a count by former Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell. He personally vouches for a spot called Rocka Doodle in Seoul, South Korea. He’s also gotten good reports from Australia and Singapore.

“I have been to Bangkok, Thailand, and I have eaten Nashville hot chicken at Fowlmouth,” he said. “It is very close.”

Purcell, who was known to eat Prince’s weekly as Nashville mayor, started the city’s hot chicken festival to promote and stake a municipal claim to the dish 20 years ago. He said the dish is embraced around the world because it’s so unique and yet familiar to other cultures known for their spicy fare.

“I don't think we're at the limits yet of what hot chicken can do or be,” Purcell said.

The reality is that this decades-old flame has been fanned by a strong tailwind in the poultry business. Chicken chains of all kinds have been growing as appetites prioritize protein. Wingstop, alone, added nearly 400 locations last year.

Compared to beef and pork, chicken’s still a bargain.

“The value proposition is there. I also think it's a very versatile protein,” said professor Jada Thompson who studies poultry markets at the University of Arkansas.

Her institution in northwest Arkansas sits at the heart of the country’s chicken farming business. The growth in fastfood chicken has made poultry one of the few agricultural sectors where farms are being added every year.

As for Nashville hot, Thompson said it’s got staying power.

“It's so hot,” Thompson said. “Like, I'm crying, there's tears, there’s snot because it's too hot, but then I also continue to eat it, and I still talk about it.”

You can always order it mild, says Chen Chen. But if you’re looking for an unforgettable experience, go for spice level five: poultrygeist.

“I mean, we’ll still kill you if you want,” Chen says. “That’s something every hot chicken entrepreneur takes pride in.”