Guy Fieri is opening a new Miami restaurant. Is this officially Flavortown now?
Flavortown has a new area code: 305.
Guy Fieri, the Rock ‘n’ Roll food TV star and king of comfort food, is opening a fried chicken restaurant in Miami. His Chicken Guy! — complete with exclamation point — will open its second location in Aventura Mall in late spring.
He leaked the news during a cooking demonstration at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival on Saturday, where he showed the crowd how he’ll make the restaurant’s signature chicken tenders.
“This is comfort food, and that’s right in my wheelhouse,” Fieri said. “I’m an all-American dude.”
The Chicken Guy! formula is simple. Super-crispy fried chicken tenders are brined in lemon, pickle juice, buttermilk and herbs and served either on skewers, sandwiches or meal-sized salad bowls.
And the piece de resistance? Twenty-two dipping sauces — 22! (insert Metallica guitar riff) — that Fieri developed for the crispy tenders. Yes, Donkey Sauce (an aioli of roasted garlic, lemon, mustard and Worcestershire sauce) is one of them.
The simple menu, which debuted at Walt Disney World’s Disney Springs in August, means Fieri could focus on making the food approachable, affordable and with antibiotic-free chicken. In Orlando, the prices range from $7-10 for most items.
“You can’t have fried chicken every day. But when you’re going to do it, it better be worth it,” he said.
It also marries with Fieri’s persona.
On his Food Network television show “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives,” Fieri highlights mom-and-pop restaurants throughout the country. Fieri rolls into town with frosted tips, flame-studded bowling shirts and a vintage red Corvette to showcase restaurants doing simple food.
Foodies turn their noses up at Fieri. (An infamous New York Times review skewered his Times Square restaurant, which closed last year.) But through his show, Fieri opened up America’s palate, highlighting nearly 1,000 out-of-the-way restaurants with cuisines that range from burgers and barbecue to Thai, Spanish and Jamaican.
In Miami, he recently highlighted Mojo Donuts in Westchester for its fried chicken sandwich on a doughnut and Blackbrick Chinese in Midtown.
He made it OK — if not outright cool — for conservative diners to eat out of their comfort zones.
“I don’t do fine dining really well and I don’t eat fine dining very often. So I’m going to do what I do best,” he said. “I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly. And I know what works.”
Fried chicken and sauces are signature Fieri. He teamed with the restaurateur who created the Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Café restaurants. But Fieri, who owns more than 60 restaurants throughout the world, said he doesn’t want Chicken Guy! to be a theme restaurant.
Instead, he said he wants his Miami spot to be a down-home place that’s worth the calories.
“I don’t want it to be a novelty,” he said. “I want it to stand on its merit.”
This story was originally published February 23, 2019 at 5:03 PM.
