If there’s one thing Western New Yorkers can agree on, it’s that Buffalo knows chicken wings. But can they agree on which local spots curate the tastiest staple food of the region? That’s what the Buffalo Wing Coalition sought to answer when they released their “Best Chicken Wings in WNY Pyramid”, which caused immediate debate once posted to social media yesterday/Monday.
“You can go on any social media thread and people will give you five, ten or fifteen different answers on what their favorite spot is for wings in Buffalo,” said Luke Nuttle, co-founder of the Buffalo Wing Coalition. “But we said let's get an organized effort here and put it into something that people can share, people can go to a website and reference to.”
Nuttle started the group with his brother in 2017 after they both felt the Buffalo wing scene needed a fun, yet structured guide. Nuttle said the range of places that made the list stretch much farther than just the City of Buffalo.
“You have a 45-minute to an hour radius around Buffalo where you're going to get good wings,” he said. “Whether you're down in Olean or going out to Darien, anywhere within this earshot, you're going to have people who have branched out from Buffalo and know how to make a good wing.”
The pyramid ranks 100 different wing spots in the region by valuing an establishment's consistency, crispiness, specialty hot sauces, unique flavors, wing size and overall restaurant atmosphere. The main contributing factor, however, is the "hot" wing served at each venue, which Nuttle said is the key to a great chicken wing.
“The first thing we do is say, ‘hey, what is your hot?,’ is it a house-made blend? Is it your own recipe, or do you guys just take Frank's Hot Sauce and throw some butter at it? Not to say it won't be a good wing if that's all you do, but the hot at the place is our main determining factor,” Nuttle said.
The top tier of the pyramid, which is labeled “The Elite,” includes five local icons. The Bar-Bill Tavern in East Aurora and Clarence, Nine-Eleven Tavern in South Buffalo, Kelly’s Korner in North Buffalo, Sonny Red’s in Lackawanna and Adolf’s First Ward in Buffalo’s First Ward neighborhood. In the group's first ranking in 2017, there were only three “Elite” locations, but Nuttle said he expects that number to keep growing.
“It started as three, but now it's five. That's not to say that it couldn't be eight a couple of years from now, we're completely open to that,” he said. “So, it's not like one spot gets kicked out over another one because the tiers are always changing,”
While the pyramid may change year in and year out, one thing will always stay the same. Buffalo knows chicken wings.
The full list and accompanying guide from the Buffalo Wing Coalition can be found here.
