Chicken Shop

NOTE: Chicken Shop has now closed here. You can still find it in St. John’s Wood, but we’d recommend heading here anyway – it’s now Rondo, a natural wine bar with a changing line-up of resident chefs.

These days, opening a Chicken Shop is a pretty bad idea.

Because chickens – and it seems so obvious with hindsight – have neither the requirement nor the means to purchase very much.

Fortunately, however, Holborn’s Chicken Shop is different: its turned the traditional model on its head and is now serving chicken… to people.

You’ll pass through what appears to be a street level front door, before descending the staircase into an intimate, wood-heavy, candlelit 1950’s-style diner/speakeasy.  It’s all rough timber, metal pillars and soft, industrial lighting: bona fide date territory, where you can either take a table or perch on a swivelling stool at the long chef-facing counter.

Fully embracing London’s paradox of choice-busting, ‘no menu’ trend, options at Chicken Shop are limited: the food is fowl.

Specifically, whole free-range Norfolk chicken marinated in a secret sauce and then rotisserie-grilled. There are three portion sizes on offer – quarter, half and whole – which come served with a choice of crinkle cut chips,‘slaw, avocado salad and corn on the cob.

There’s also a simple choice of wines – house, decent or good – and an equally simple choice of classic desserts: brownies, cheesecake or apple pie with vanilla ice-cream.

And chickens are flying out of the door too, courtesy of a takeaway option…

NOTE: Chicken Shop has now closed here. You can still find it in St. John’s Wood, but we’d recommend heading here anyway – it’s now Rondo, a natural wine bar with a changing line-up of resident chefs.

Chicken Shop | 202 High Holborn, WC1V 7BD

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