Chicken Shop

My husband and I enjoy going on a Thursday or Friday night — one of our Tooting favourites. Fast and friendly service. Chicken is delicious and so is their side salad (baby gem and avocado). They make the most delicious lemon tart and apple pie for dessert. The interior is fun… looks like a candlelit barn almost. We recently tried the Balham location and found that the food was still good and consistent, but the interior wasn’t quite as intimate. We love our Tooting location. Hard to beat the price too — £15 buys you a half chicken and a huge salad.

This is the second Chicken Shop location I’ve been to and I always forget just how amazing they are. The staff at the Tooting location were really friendly and attentive despite it being as packed as you would expect for a Friday. We arrived around 7pm and were asked to wait about 15 minutes for seating in the back, while the bar is first come, first served. They took our drink orders while we waited and by the time our table was ready in under 10 minutes they were waiting for us at our table, which was pretty fun. Their decent red wine is waaay too easy to drink.
Feeling a bit excessive, the two of us ordered the whole chicken, chips and the butter lettuce and avocado salad which is my favourite part. If you order the whole chicken, expect a lot of leftovers as the half chicken is perfect for 2. Leftovers also helps you save room for their apple pie which is a must. No matter how full you are. You gotta do it. They bring out a huge pie dish and scoop a massive mound onto their vanilla ice cream. If you’re as indulgent as we tend to be at Chicken Shop, I suggest finishing the meal with a little walk. :)

With Tooting being branded as the new ‘Shoreditch’ by some interesting soul, it was only a matter of time before something with skinny jeans and a beanie would grace its streets. Chicken Shop is a member of the ‘Soho House’ collection of restaurants, with its sister establishment firmly embedded in Kentish Town life. The restaurant claims to serve up «free-​range birds from Banham’s Farm in Norfolk, which are marinated overnight, steamed and then cooked over charcoal on our special rotisserie». It was with this promise of rotisserie steamed goods that we embarked upon a much-​anticipated chicken dinner.
If you are going to make one thing, and one thing only, it should be bloody fantastic. The Chicken at Chicken Shop however, was a little disappointing. The portions were a good size and relatively cheap but the taste wasn’t that special and I’m not sure I’d go back for the chicken alone. Deserts however, were a different matter, with the apple pie being tasty, wholesome and satisfying. Maybe it should change its name to desert shop.
A slightly frustrating element of the evening was the dining time limit — whilst the food was very fast, being given a fixed time to chow it down and then being bundled off to the bar to make space for other diners can dampen the dining experience.
Chicken Shop was certainly better than Nandos, but part of me thinks that was due to the décor.
A fun edition to the Tooting scene which takes you away from the downtrodden look of the high-​street itself, but perhaps a little more style than substance. Might stick to the original house.