Mike Sutter’s Top 10 Fried Chicken in San Antonio
Our restaurant critic ranks the best locally owned full fried chicken operations, from an East Side soul food revival to a Pearl favorite to a Michelin shack on the West Side
We’ve walked you through a lot of fried things this summer, starting with the Top 10 chicken tenders, then the best (and worst) chicken tenders from the national chains. And while we’re frying, let’s talk about the real stuff: fried chicken. Not tenders, not wings. The fried chicken my Granny used to fry in a cast-iron skillet, sometimes with a stray pinfeather or two. Because, you know, farm. For this first update of the city’s Top 10 Fried Chicken since 2023, I visited more than 25 restaurants. Four of these also made the list of Top 10 chicken tenders. Five of them are brand-new to the updated list. All of them know the restorative, connective power of old-fashioned fried chicken.
Article continues below this ad
Map view
List view
102442 Nacogdoches RoadSee on map|Add to Want to goAdd to I’ve been here
We don’t come to Mama’s Cafe because it’s fancy. We come because it feels like our aunt’s kitchen, it feels like comfort, it feels like home. And an important part of home for me, for many of us, is fried chicken. And for Sunday dinner starting at about 3:30 — and only for Sunday dinner — Mama’s puts out a plate of hot honey fried chicken with a side of collard greens and mac & cheese. It’s half a chicken split into four pieces, wearing a thick, shatter-crust armor reinforced with cornstarch that plays a flavor game of hide-and-seek with cornbread and county-fair corny dogs. That crust acts like a golden shield over chicken that shimmers like a rotisserie bird with steam and heat. I’m talking about temperature, not spice. Because the “hot honey” part is up to you, served on the side for as much or as little of that sports bar wing experience as you like. I’m told they run out around 7:30. Only on Sundays, only for a few hours. Even in that limited window, this chicken is good enough to stand among the city’s Top 10.
Phone number:210-826-8303WebsiteRelated
92351 E. Commerce St., Suite 105See on map|Add to Want to goAdd to I’ve been here
Mrs. Kitchen is back. After a short-lived move to a generic North Side cookie-cutter of a place that never felt like a good fit, this soul food survivor came back to the East Side in October. It’s trimmed down to the meat-and-sides basics: meatloaf, fried fish, smothered pork chops, yams, wings, greens, macaroni and cheese, Kool-Aid and the fried chicken that drew me to their old East Side spot years ago. A three-piece with two sides and cornbread is $14.50, a decent value for two full skin-on thighs and legs (four pieces on the day I was there, to make up for them being out of white meat). It’s crispy and salted, consistently crusted all over, with a robust texture that feels as scrappy as the last couple of years for Mrs. K.
Phone number:210-254-9200WebsiteRelated
85532 Walzem RoadSee on map|Add to Want to goAdd to I’ve been here
“I got one for you.” That’s an opening line among the three men sitting next to me at Mr. A Ok’s, swapping military stories. The toddler behind me is screaming at the top of his lungs, and his mother and his aunt are carrying on like nothing’s happening. And the three friends at a table on the other side are having a video call with a fourth friend, trading the phone around. This is lunch, this is life, this is Mr. A Ok’s. A three-piece fried chicken plate with sides of collard greens and macaroni and cheese is a celebration of form over flash, served in styrofoam with cornbread so thick and moist, you could stick a birthday candle in it and make a wish. This is fried chicken that wears most of its seasoning on the outside, a dusting as it comes out of the fryer and then to my table too hot to touch. Not too thick, not too thin, the crust does what it was always meant to do: Keep the chicken juicy as it rolls through the oil, then give it a crunchy contrast and a canvas for the salt and seasonings that tell you everything’s gonna be OK at Mr. A Ok’s.
Phone number:210-642-4181WebsiteRelated
71001 Rittiman RoadSee on map|Add to Want to goAdd to I’ve been here
Fried chicken isn’t just about size and crunch, it’s about character. Bone-in fried chicken at Honey’s represents the coming together of size and price for that Goldilocks zone we call value, because a three-piece with a breast, thigh and drumstick with a side, gravy and a biscuit clocks in at $14.99. And if you’ve shopped around, you know that’s a pretty good price for chicken of this caliber. The building was a former Church’s chicken that closed after a fire, and Honey’s opened a year ago, with chicken that’s crispy enough to crackle, but somehow keeps from drying out inside. Not exactly juicy; more like just loose enough to get the show on the road, kinda like the Texas blues they play in the dining room, with its red-checkered tablecloths and do-it-yourself sweet tea with a dash of lemonade.
Phone number:210-560-2104WebsiteRelated
Article continues below this ad
6555 W. Bitters Road, Suite 110See on map|Add to Want to goAdd to I’ve been here
At this stylish barndominium of a restaurant at the Alley on Bitters, the lunch menu’s “meat & three” category includes bone-in fried chicken, with three pieces and three sides. If you’re doing it right, those sides are creamed-corn fritters with nduja marmalade; English pea hummus with a crown of raw vegetables; and a fat slice of sweet skillet cornbread. It’s the kind of jumped-up country ranch cooking that chef and co-owner PJ Edwards has been doing since his days with Contigo in Austin. They hit the chicken with a spice combo that includes smoked paprika, regular paprika and onion powder after it comes out of the fryer. It’s fried chicken with color and character, made by people who take their time, with a crust that flexes pops and crackles in the right places over chicken with a clean, velveteen bite. At dinner time, fried chicken is offered as a half chicken, but it doesn’t include the cornucopia of sides you get at lunchtime, on the plate that lets you know who Meadow is. And when someone tells you who they are, you should listen.
Phone number:210-481-4214WebsiteRelated
51302 N. Flores St.See on map|Add to Want to goAdd to I’ve been here
Already a Top 10 destination for chicken-fried steak, M.K. Davis wasn’t a stretch for making the fried chicken Top 10 list. It’s something they’ve been doing in Five Points since 1956, when Melvin Kimble Davis first put his initials in the big book of San Antonio restaurant lore. Seventy years. That’s a long time to get fried chicken right. And they do, with the kind of storybook crust you’d imagine from the ’50s, with salt and flour and nothing fancy. That old-school aesthetic extends to the thick-cut fries, the griddled Texas toast and a side salad made of iceberg lettuce and memories, covered in Thousand Island. If I’ve already mentioned that two-handed schooner of ice-cold beer, forget I ever said anything and bring me another.
Phone number:210-223-1208Social mediaRelated
4136 E. Grayson St., Suite 120, at PearlSee on map|Add to Want to goAdd to I’ve been here
The last time I ranked the city’s Top 10 fried chicken, this Pearl mainstay restaurant’s satellite, Southerleigh Haute South at The Rim, edged out the Michelin-recognized mothership. It’s still good, but there’s a throwback industrial mystique about Southerleigh at Pearl that makes fried chicken feel like a turn-of-the-century newsreel — a newsreel with you making exaggerated facial expressions as you bite into the first of four equally exaggerated pieces of chicken in sped-up black-and-white. In real life, that chicken’s more like an ombré fade of mahogany, copper and mocha, with a stainless steel ramekin of sweet hot sauce on the side, plus pickles and couple of dense ranch-style biscuits. It eats as pretty as it looks, with a loose crunch and seasoning that steps up, then gets out of the way. With a glass of foamy nitro stout and a platter of fresh oysters, you might as well be a Third Coast longshoreman on a long lunch break.
Phone number:210-455-5701WebsiteRelated
310234 Texas 151, Suite 103See on map|Add to Want to goAdd to I’ve been here
Does your chicken joint have a Michelin Bib Gourmand designation? No? Don’t worry about it, because Jerk Shack isn’t doing anything different than they did before the big move to Texas 151 from their little walk-up stand on the West Side. Still the best Jamaican jerk chicken in the city, still some damn good greens and mac & cheese, and still the same amber-gold fried chicken that makes you forget the name out front says Jerk Shack and not Jamaican Fried Chicken
Phone number:210-776-7780WebsiteRelated
Article continues below this ad
2312 Pearl Parkway at the Pearl food hallSee on map|Add to Want to goAdd to I’ve been here
How do you follow an opening act as strong as The Jerk Shack? For chef Nicola Blaque, you become your own strongest competitor with this modest Pearl food hall kiosk that honors the enterprising Black women who sold fried chicken to rail passengers in the South. Potato flour and corn flour combine for a gluten-free crust that’s equal parts light and crunchy over legs and thighs that stay juicy at the core, with the best potato salad and biscuits in this report. Under the stewardship of chef Lionel “Butch” Blache, Freight also scored the No. 1 spot for the city’s best chicken tenders.
Social mediaRelated
11747 S. W.W. White RoadSee on map|Add to Want to goAdd to I’ve been here
It’s always a big moment when a new No. 1 emerges in the city’s most competitive food categories. And there aren’t too many categories more competitive than fried chicken. But the more things change, the more they stay the same, and for the second consecutive time, Chatman’s Chicken commands the No. 1 spot. With owner Eddie Chatman as the shepherd of this East Side gathering spot for almost 25 years now, Chatman’s is the kind of place where the owner’s son, Eric Chatman, might take your order. He might apologize that the last piece will take a few minutes before it’s out of the fryer, then chase after the plate with that last piece, too hot to touch, too good to stop yourself from doing it anyway. There it is, that golden Chatman ratio of crust and communion, straight from the fryer. As a man of public faith both proud and humble, Eddie Chatman might not awaken your belief in the great hereafter, but he’ll make you believe in the simple beauty of fried chicken, year after year.
Phone number:210-359-0245Social mediaRelated
Want to go
Your saved items will show up here!
I’ve been here
Your saved items will show up here!
What’s cooking in San Antonio? Top 10 lists, restaurant news and more.
Reporting, photos and production by Mike Sutter. Editing by Jan Waddy. Powered by theHearst DevHub
Aug 5, 2026|UpdatedAug 5, 2026 9:31 a.m.
Mike Sutter
Restaurant Critic
Mike Sutter is the Express-News restaurant critic. He can be reached at msutter@express-news.net
Before joining the Taste Team in 2016, he served as a restaurant critic for the Austin American-Statesman and editor of FedManWalking.com. He’s appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” ABC’s “To Tell the Truth” and written for The Guardian, Bon Appetit and The Wall Street Journal
