I’ve always loved fried chicken. The crunch. The juice. The way it manages to be both comfort food and celebration depending on where you are and who you’re with. So, when H2O Publishing invited Nick and I to the inaugural Fried Chicken Championships at Big Penny Social in Walthamstow, it was a done deal.

This wasn’t your average cook-off. This was 14 of Britain’s most accomplished chicken operators. Chefs who have spent months testing brine recipes and arguing about coating ratios with their colleagues at three in the morning. Stakes were high.

The roster read like a best of the best. 20Ft Fried Chicken from Market Halls. Chick’N’Sours with their cult following. Butchies bringing their buttermilk-brined operation from East London. Fortune Fried Chicken with their Thai street food sensibility from Spitalfields Market.

Watching these operators prep was fascinating. No bravado. Just quiet competence. These are people who’ve done this ten thousand times before, yet there they were, triple-checking everything because this time there was a championship trophy riding on it.

20Ft Fried Chicken took the crown. Their Hot Chicken Burger was the deciding factor. Double-fried chicken thighs. Habanero hot honey mayo that somehow managed to be both sweet and violent. Pickles. Vinegar slaw. Their signature spice blend. All held together by soft sesame buns.

The judges were impressed. We were impressed. I suspect even the other operators, despite the sting of losing, could admit it was exceptional work.

Britain’s fried chicken has undergone something remarkable over the past decade. Thai spice profiles. Korean glazes. Nashville hot techniques. Buttermilk brines perfected over years. We’re watching a genuine evolution in British food culture.

Quick-service doesn’t mean low-effort. These operators are pushing boundaries that would embarrass some fine dining kitchens. They’re sourcing quality birds, obsessing over details most customers will never consciously register, building businesses on margins so thin you could read a newspaper through them.

The camaraderie between competitors was genuine too. These are direct rivals in an unforgiving market, yet there’s a shared understanding of the grind. Events like this remind you that hospitality, when it works properly, is fundamentally a community.

Congratulations to 20Ft Fried Chicken on a well-deserved win. Commiserations to everyone who came heartbreakingly close. And thanks to H2O Publishing for creating a platform that celebrates the operators making British hospitality interesting rather than just functional.

Clare Fellowes-Freeman
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