Chuck's Hot Chicken now open in Maryland Heights

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Gregory Cross Photography

Consider the pickle and its relationship with the fried chicken sandwich. What would the Reuben be without a triangle javelin of dill? Or the Chicago dog without its piquant spear nestled beside the pup and that neon relish? So it is with the fried chicken sandwich, a current culinary shiny object, and the accompanying pickle. While it might seem an afterthought, it is anything but.

Those pickles perform a critical, yeoman’s task, cutting through the rich, fried fattiness of the battered chicken. They provide a vital enhancement. They tickle the palate and prevent it from becoming too lazy, luxuriating in all that salty, crispy hot lushness. Pickles on a fried chicken sandwich are—well, let’s use an analogy with which we’re all familiar: Pickles on that sandwich are the Vespone character in Pergolesi’s La serva padrona, a minor character who's critical to the advancement of the plot.

Which brings us to the pickles—and more—at a new chicken joint, Chuck’s Hot Chicken, in Maryland Heights.

Nashville’s iconic hot chicken has captured the enthusiasm of millions of eaters who’ve never been any closer to Nashville than having their heart broken in a pickup truck in the rain. It’s an ingenious, some might say diabolical, preparation. Using an oily stew of volatile spices, dip the unfried chicken in it before it goes into the hot grease and then use the same potion in the crust. The result is a heat that lurks. It sneaks up on you like a pride of lions surrounding an unsuspecting wildebeest at a watering hole, closing in as your mouth thinks it’s just another sunny day on the savannah. It begins as a smoldering sensation on your tongue, then ignites and halfway through the bite, it’s gone for the jugular of your sinuses and it’s all over but, literally, the crying.

Next to Oprah, hot chicken is Nashville’s most famous contribution to civilization. It’s only been within the past decade that the fiery fowl has been exported from Tennessee; now, it seems, any burg big enough to have a stoplight also sports at least one place peddling it.

Sharing space with a Cecil Whittaker's Pizza location in a strip mall that’s also home to the fabulous St. Louis Filipino Bread bakery, Chuck's has managed to combine the Nashville napalm–style chicken with another of the more popular food diversions of the moment: fried chicken sandwiches.

If Nashville-style hot chicken developed a relationship with Chick-fil-A, they might produce the sandwich that's now available at the takeout window at Chuck’s, an idea that came to Charles "Chuck" Taylor when he visited that renowned bastion of the hot chicken genre, Hattie B's in Nashville.

"The flavors stayed in my mind," he says. "It was something special and addicting. I immediately called my partner, Jon [Plawsky]," who co-owns the Cecil Whittaker's with Taylor. "We began experimenting, working on recipes at Cecil's into the night after we closed, until we came up with sauces and a breading that we were happy with. We decided to trim, hand-bread, and fry all of our chicken to order using only fresh chicken breasts."

The partners focused on simplicity (as in limited offerings), quality, and making the concept scalable. "Jon and I spent a lot of time coming up with what we think is the perfect stay-crisp-on-delivery French fry and a stay-crisp to-go container," he says. They settled on a 9-by-6-inch fully sealable yet vented container that's dishwasher- and microwave-safe and reusable. "They're not cheap," Taylor says, "but you can't skimp on things like that."     

The owners debated opening a standalone Chuck's Hot Chicken at the outset but decided to test the concept at their Cecil Whittaker's store first.

Gregory Cross Photography

In the existential chill of La Covide Epoque, this might be hottest idea around. Order online (or at the window and, if so, dress warmly—this location, at the summit of a long hill, is one of the windiest and coldest places in St. Louis County), and take home your food.

Gregory Cross Photography

The mains on the menu aren’t extensive. There are chicken strips and the signature sandwiches. The chicken between the buns is a seriously thick fillet, fried to the kind of perfection that you might expect from a small-town Southern diner. The breading’s crusty, the meat juicy; it’s a fine piece o’ poultry. Chuck’s smoky, creamy sauce comes on the side, and it’s excellent. Those pickles are the only adornment. (There is much animated discussion in the fried chicken sandwich crowd: Should the pickles be lovers (i.e., touching one another) or just friends (i.e., side by side). Seriously. People argue about this and they use these definitions.) All we care about is that Chuck’s provides some extras, so you can arrange a veritable polyamorous soirée atop your chicken. Chuck’s choice in pickles is superb. They’re light, just mildly sour enough for a crunchy tang.

Many hot chicken joints seem to spend as much time thinking up descriptors for the levels of heat they provide as they do on their actual recipes, so you can get a whole range of potency with imaginative names that frequently include such words as Scorpion, Death, Fire, and Lava, or which promise various alimentary consequences for those who are up to the challenge. Chuck’s has five levels, from “baby steps” to an “out of body experience” to  "try at your own risk." We asked about the power of that last one, and the person at the window warned that it’s “crying uncontrollably hot.” We have enough tears in life, so we opted, on a couple of trips, to instead try the first and second level; we didn’t find much difference. The heat is a tingly frisson but nothing of the palate-searing flames of some other Nashville-style places.

Gregory Cross Photography

Sides are simple. If you’re a cheese curd connoisseur, try Chuck’s version, smacked with garlic and the requisite squeak. The homemade coleslaw is reminiscent of KFC’s, with a slight vinegar kick and a smooth, mayonnaise dressing. French fries are the coated, lightly battered variety. Corn fritters are a gooey, sweet ball of fried batter thick with fresh corn, almost like a dessert. The only real dessert offered is “funnel cake fries,” which are as intriguingly decadent as they sound, topped with powdered sugar and accompanied by a tub of syrup just in case things aren’t already quite, you know, calorically trippindicular enough. "As we progress, we'll make more of the sides in house," Taylor says. "Right now, it's a mix."

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Gregory Cross Photography

Weekends feature chicken and waffles. The combination continues to baffle us. It’s like hot fudge on a pizza. There are those who dig it, however, and, given the quality of the fried chicken, this should be a good place to satisfy such weird, frankly suspicious tastes.

Gregory Cross Photography

When the weather isn’t quite so Ice Road Truckers awful, you can park at the far west end of the strip mall, beside the bakery, and eat in your car with a beautiful view of the valley, which spreads out below and is one of the best places around to watch the sun set as you dine. Alternately, you might take a Chuck’s Nashville-style hot chicken sandwich to the opera the next time Pergolesi’s La serva padrona is performed in St. Louis. Wherever you enjoy it, be sure to stop and appreciate those pickles.

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Gregory Cross Photography