New Orleans has some of the best food in the U.S. but one thing it’s definitely lacking is WINGS. However, Chef Allen and Chef Kyle have come to fix that. Located right off of South Claiborne is Bayou Hot Wings, one of NOLA’s best places to get some wings.
After working together at the Metairie Country club, Chef Allen and Chef Kyle had a conversation about wings while making soup, and the idea of Bayou Hot Wings evolved. Being native Louisianan’s they decided there was no place better than New Orleans to open up their wing shop. The transition from working at a restaurant to owning and running their own hot wings restaurant turned out to be the right move for them. They said their parents were a, “bit skeptical at first and were like ‘why would you quit’”, but Bayou Hot Wings has quickly risen to the top. Plus they said that owning their own restaurant is “so much better than working at a restaurant”.
They have strong student support and said, “a lot of Tulane athletes eat at Bayou but students from all over New Orleans come in”. They also have over 3000 Facebook fans! (Find them on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/BayouHotWings) Urbanspoon recently voted them as having the best fast food in New Orleans, beating out Raisn’ Canes! (http://www.urbanspoon.com/f/57/5622/New-Orleans/Fast-Food-Places) As Chef Kyle said “not bad for being open 9 or 10 months”.
Bayou Hot Wings has ten different sauces to choose from, and a few off menu choices too. Keeping it local, they use Crystal Hot Sauce, and Steen’s Cane Sugar to make their sauces, which they just, “hammered out a few weeks before they opened up Bayou Hot Wings”. If you’re not a wing person, they also have burgers and sandwiches to choose from. Not only does Bayou Hot Wings have great wings, but they also have frog legs and gator too to, “make it bayou”! They told us that Herbsaint tells people they have the, “Second best alligator in town. They laughed after they said that and said they were more than ok with that”.
For the real hot sauce lovers, and I mean those people who really love spicy food, Bayou Hot Wings offers the BEAST CHALLENGE. Chef Allen said that the challenge has an 11% success rate, and everyone cries. You have five minutes to eat ten wings covered in an extremely spicy hot sauce. The sauce is so hot that to participate in the beast challenge you first must sign a waiver. They said, “we made it good and didn’t just dump a ton of ghost chili’s in there”. They said that there were some videos of people trying the ghost challenge and that there was one “of a guy wearing a camera on his head that was pretty cool”. Check it out here (http://youtu.be/1t2OTFXy5zQ)
There are some off the menu combinations that are really popular, such as the hot honey mustard, which is money mustard and hot sauce. They also have a ghost chili sauce, which is smoky and sweet and extremely spicy. As Chef Allen said it takes you “right to the edge of the cliff”.
They said that they choose New Orleans because they were locals and there was nowhere else to be. We asked what they loved about New Orleans and they said, “the food, the people and the girls ain’t bad either”.
So next time you find yourself craving wings and wondering, go check out Bayou Hot Wings, and if you are feeling brave try the Beast Challenge!
Find them online at http://www.bayouhotwings.com/
Or on campus menus
The second best alligator in town seems like some high praise. I don’t think I’d be in that 11% that completes the beast challenge, and after this article I’d be afraid to try it. Everyone cries? Yikes.