Old City Gets Bold New Flavors With BlackHen
Old City needed a late-night fried chicken joint. A brunch spot. A BYOB. A place to get mac and cheese, hand pies, deviled eggs, and charcoal-blackened waffles.
Felicia Wilson saw that. Already in the neighborhood with her Nigerian-inflected Southern restaurant, Amina , she opened BlackHen just a few doors down on Chestnut Street, carrying over some of the soul-food inspirations that she and chef Darryl Harmon had on the board already at Amina, but giving them a different twist.
At BlackHen, they're trading fancy for fun, gastriques for barbecue sauces, seriousness for fried pickles, deviled eggs crowned with little shark fins of crispy chicken skin, and chicken cheesesteak beignets set in a line on a black plate smeared with a sauce that's comeback meets Big Mac. They're doing popcorn chicken served with actual popcorn on the side, ranch-dusted and goofy, and plates of fried chicken with black cherry wishniak barbecue sauce that is both singular (I've never seen anyone else try it) and fucking delicious.
As a concept, the place is solid. It has a hundred great ideas, a palpable vibe, and a voice all its own. There's almost nothing on the menu that I've tried that tastes how it does elsewhere: The mac and cheese has an aged sharp cheddar sourness; the cornbread is aggressively buttery and almost as soft as angel food — and comes dressed with a saccharine black vanilla butter sauce that dyes it black and only adds to the sweetness. And the fryer-crisp, sugar-dusted peach hand pies are maybe one of the best desserts I've had in a year — reason enough to return.
The problem with BlackHen, though, is consistency. And some basic technique. The pickles are sliced too thin to fry and turn fast to jelly, plus the jacket of light batter slides right off after one bite. The chicken can vary wildly from piece to piece — an excellent wing following a mediocre breast. Those black charcoal buns on the smoked chicken sandwiches? They look awesome, no doubt, but they can also be mealy and soft, tasting almost underbaked (which feels to me like a chemistry problem).
None of this, though, would stop me from coming back. There's so much happening here, in this small, close-set dining room that wears its whole heart unapologetically on its sleeve, that some stumbles feel almost inevitable. Because when you're running so headlong after flavor, you're going to trip now and then. But at a place like BlackHen, the falls don't matter to me quite so much as the happy recklessness of the attempt.
2 Stars — Come if you're in the neighborhood
Rating Key
0 stars: stay away : come if you have no other options : come if you're in the neighborhood : come from anywhere in Philly : come from anywhere in America
Published as "Soul Food, Philly-Style" in the November 2024 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
