SOUTHERN & BARBECUE

Bourbon & Bones

When you start a fried-chicken cult following, you’ve got a lot to live up to when you open your own establishment. Such is the case for Mike Law, who made the Wandering Goose’s Friday-night fried-chicken suppers legendary. Now he’s inside his custom-built 10 x10 smokehouse, where he smokes whole pigs, sausages, and bacon. Still serving the best fried chicken in Seattle (by the piece or the bucket), he also brings Seattleites his Lexington (Carolina)-style barbecue, brisket, and sinful Southern sides like mac ’n’ cheese, grits, baked beans with pork-belly bacon, smothered collard greens, and a vinegary coleslaw that’s my version of crack. The tiny roadhouse-style restaurant sports a taxidermied wild boar head, skulls, and jars of pickles and other pickled things. Order at the register and grab a seat—or better yet, bring it all back home and spread out the finger-lickin’ good feast. 4350 Leary Way N.W., 582-2241 NICOLE SPRINKLE

Ezell’s Chicken

World-famous as Oprah Winfrey’s favorite fried-chicken restaurant (a signed picture of her hangs over the register), Ezell’s preternaturally tender chicken lickin’s will comfort you in your sadness and help you achieve spiritual transcendence in your moments of joy. The dinner rolls that come with every chicken meal are made from magically sweet fairy flour that melts in your mouth. When you want some down-home baked beans, mashed potatoes, or no-fuss fried chicken, Ezell’s is the only place to go. There’s a reason Esquire called it “The Most Life-Changing Fried Chicken in America.” 501 23rd Ave., 324-4141, and eight other locations.

ezellschicken.com KELTON SEARS

Honey Hole

Situated between a high-end sex shop and a magickal pagan/occult store, Honey Hole might be the best barbecue joint in town. The cozy restaurant specializes in sandwiches—like The Bandit, juicy, sauce-slathered brisket topped with coleslaw and melted sharp cheddar—that will haunt your dreams. Plus, Honey Hole has hands down the best French fries in Seattle—thick golden straws that are always perfectly crisp and never soggy or limp. And hey! You can pick up that vibrator and book of spells you’ve always wanted on your way out. 703 E. Pike St., 709-1399,

thehoneyhole.com KELTON SEARS

The Wandering Goose

If nothing else, every Seattleite must, at one point in this precious life, take in The Wandering Goose’s Fried Chicken Friday, where what is arguably the city’s best buttermilk fried chicken is served with table-slapping hot sauces and your choice of collard greens, mash, peas, grits, coleslaw, or mac and cheese. You might be tempted to return the next morning for the Hangtown Fry, a heart attack in a skillet sizzling with fried oysters, pork belly, and poached eggs, or one of their cheap, easy, and delectable biscuit sandwiches. 403 15th Ave. E., 323-9938,

thewanderinggoose.com MARK S. BAUMGARTEN