The Perfect Bite
After her first star turn on Chopped in 2011, Maneet Chauhan was inundated by offers from potential partners to open a restaurant in big cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and…Nashville? “I was like, ‘Where the beep is Nashville?’” the Indian-born chef is fond of saying. “But I came here and just fell in love.” One of the deal-sealers: That most spicy of the city’s institutions. “Hot chicken had a big influence on me moving here. It’s the epitome of the perfect bite: the texture, the flavor, the juiciness,” she says. “It just blew my mind.” So naturally she came up with an Indian spin on the chicken that lured her South for the menu at her first Music City restaurant, Chauhan Ale & Masala House. Crispy, spicy chicken nuggets tossed in ghost pepper sauce, hot chicken pakoras are a mashup of Chicken 65—a snack from the South of India where she went to cooking school—and the Nashville classic. Five years and four restaurants later, Chauhan still makes the dish for her family, only now she cuts up a whole chicken to fry instead of nuggets— proof that she’s more Nashvillian than ever.
share
TLP Editors
trending content
-
FINAL Vote for Your Favorite 2025 Southern Culinary Town
-
A Brief History of Shrimp and Grits
by Erin Byers Murray -
Get To Know Roanoke, Virginia
-
7 Famous Masters Recipes to Recreate at Home
by TLP Editors -
New Myrtle Beach Restaurants Making Waves
More From At the Table
-
Summer Harvest with BJ Dennis
-
8 Fresh Sides for This Fourth of July
-
9 Recipes for a Father’s Day Cookout
-
3 Ways To Use Tomatoes From a Nashville Chef
-
Spice Up Your Seafood Dishes With Okra Hot Sauce
Comment 1
Love her taste of food