Let the Butter Hit the Bird. Let the Butter Hit the Bird.

The origin story is painted on the wall: "Put the butter on the bird." It started as exactly that — an accident during a Sunday Dinner Club event when staff spread leftover honey butter on fried chicken while eating in the kitchen. The combination was so obviously right that chefs Christine Cikowski and Josh Kulp eventually built a restaurant around it. Sunday Dinner Club, which started as a communal dinner party in 2004, still holds occasional ticketed meals in the same Elston building. The ambition of those events explains why the everyday menu has more craft underneath it than the fast-casual format suggests.

The chicken is straightforward American fried chicken, not Nashville hot, not Korean-style. Crisp, juicy, and made from cage-free, antibiotic-free birds fried in non-GMO canola oil. Each order comes with a scoop of sweet whipped honey butter intended to melt directly onto the hot crust. The combination works just like it worked in the kitchen that night: it is obvious once you taste it and impossible to explain why nobody thought of it sooner.

The original sandwich is the strongest argument for coming. The candied jalapeño butter and slaw give it brightness and heat that lifts the whole thing somewhere fresher and more interesting than standard fried chicken sandwich territory. The tenders are good across the board.

The sides are where to be selective. The schmaltz mashed potatoes are on top. They're rich, savory, they're worth ordering a second order of, just in case you need more. The coleslaw with kale is delicious and cuts through the richness well. The mac and cheese is the one to think twice about. The pimento in the cheese gives it something different and I understand the intention, but there is a sourness to the pimento that I find distracting after a few bites. Not bad. Just not a full order.

The biscuits are good though they are comically small, which is almost a shame because the honey butter that comes alongside them is soft, whipped, and genuinely excellent. They give you more honey butter than biscuit. Save what is left. It is very good on toast in the morning.

The chocolate and toffee cookies at the end of the meal are soft, appropriately sized, and a good note to finish on without tipping the meal into excess. They're not making our best-of-city cookie list but they get the job done. The right size for what it is.

Honey Butter Fried Chicken composts, recycles fryer oil into biodiesel, and sources from Midwestern farms. When the craving hits, this is a very good answer to it.