…recently, Tuesday February the 9th, at Soho Chicken, we were in the mood for something different, “The Urban Restaurant & Bar” came just in time.

Many will still know the good old Wienerwald – since this chicken roasting house, which was always available in “former times”, is hard to find (in Hamburg for example not at all), it has become even harder to get a really good grilled chicken.

From my point of view such a chicken should

• Still have the whole skin!
• The skin should be brown & crispy (not blond or slabbery).
• It should be of useable size (>1.1kg)
• It should be juicy – even if the way home should take some time at the Takeaway, it must still arrive juicy at home!

In Advance

We already called that place one week before our visit to make a reservation for eight people – unfortunately this is not possible at Shoho Chicken – more than a pity.

Unfortunately, this led to the fact that we had to wait in the middle of the restaurant – still in jackets – approx. 20 minutes for free places – this should not have been happened.

Ambience

The concept exists & has existed before with ChickenShop in London – the website is very close to what Soho Chicken currently has published on the net. The restaurant itself is quite dark and very loud – unnecessarily loud for today’s possibilities to control sound.

The Food

All chickens were “blond” through the bench, many of the served chicken pieces had no skin at all – from our point of view of course a NoGo for a chicken barbecue place.

When we asked the waiters to get the chicken a bit darker and crispier, we got a “It gets too dry then and we are instructed not to do that”…well, the customer is still king at the Soho…;-)

Some of my colleagues had ordered themselves French fries as side dish – here Soho Chicken really charges for the “Ketchup” – not that they offer “sauces” that are particularly tasty and of high-quality… well, one should probably reconsider there again.

The actual quality of the chickens was good and we noticed that they were not discount goods.

What struck us was that Soho Chicken is quite expensive “on the way”, and this despite the shirt-sleeved atmosphere – felt it somehow doesn’t fit together.

My Conclusion

You can visit Soho Chicken – but you don’t have to. Compared to the taste that the many Turkish barbecue bistros in Hamburg can offer with their real charcoal barbecues, the Soho taste has nothing to do with it.

Those who like it loud and have no problem with system gastronomy are right there – those who like it classically crispy should eat their “rubber eagle” somewhere else.