{"id":2391,"date":"2020-10-17T13:12:19","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T17:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ctdish.com\/?p=2391"},"modified":"2020-10-19T19:36:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-19T23:36:08","slug":"haven-hot-chicken-brings-a-taste-of-nashville-to-the-elm-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ctdish.com\/?p=2391","title":{"rendered":"Haven Hot Chicken Brings a Taste of Nashville to the Elm City"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Saturday, October 17, was the public opening of Haven Hot Chicken in downtown New Haven\u2014and there was a line down the block. Earlier in the week, my wife Ann and I were the first to attend the press opening of this exciting new Nashville hot chicken restaurant created by a team of industry veterans well known to followers of the Elm City food scene.<\/p>

As we parked across the street in a total downpour, we were heartened to see Jason Sobocinski waving to us in greeting. An innovator with a Midas touch, Sobocinski has been involved in Caseus, Ordinary<\/a> and The Stack<\/a> in New Haven and Black Hog Brewing<\/a> in Oxford\u2014just to name a few career highlights. Joining him in this venture are chef Rob LaTronica of Wheelers in Woodbridge and the Beer Collective in New Haven\u2019s Ninth Square, Craig Sklar owner of the Beer Collective, and Etkin Tekin, founder of the Little Salad Shop<\/a> in downtown New Haven. All four gentlemen were on hand to explain the genesis of Haven Hot Chicken.<\/p>

A restaurant for the times, the bright and cheerful joint is focused on takeout and delivery, offering no indoor seating. Setting the tone inside is a mural by well-known area artist M.J. DeAngelo<\/a>, who signs his works @refractualism. The helpful mural depicts a white chicken emitting flames from its mouth depicting the varying grades of hotness available. The spice levels include Country (which I\u2019ll characterize as not spicy), Mild (spicy enough for many), Medium (packs a pleasing wallop), Hot (just as it says) and Haven (wear gloves). There are even a couple of higher spice levels (have your doctor on hand) available off-menu for serious masochists.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The genesis of the concept was the ownership quartet\u2019s passion for Nashville hot chicken. Haven Hot Chicken is billed as Connecticut\u2019s first eatery dedicated to the incendiary fried chicken from Nashville whose popularity its music industry and visiting tourists are helping spread. Hot chicken has its roots in Nashville\u2019s African-American community, with Thornton Prince III, owner of a chicken shack, credited as its originator. According to legend, Prince was a womanizer who, after a late night out, incurred the wrath of his girlfriend, who prepared him a fried chicken breakfast with a vengeful dose of pepper. Prince reportedly liked the chicken so much that, by the mid-1930s, he and his brothers had devised their own recipe for it.<\/p>

After several trips to Nashville, LaTronica was able to perfect the Haven recipe. THE Sandwich features \u201cbuttermilk-marinated, boneless chicken breast, creamy vinegar slaw, garlic dill pickle, Rob sauce, on a toasted Martin\u2019s potato bun.\u201d My take on it: It\u2019s spectacular, absolutely delicious, the flavors and textures providing stimulating contrasts. I have found a new addiction.<\/p>

Besides THE Sandwich, there\u2019s a Tendie Trio that includes \u201cthree buttermilk-marinated jumbo tendies, garlic-dill pickles, served on white bread with a choice of sauce.\u201d The sauces available are blue cheese, Haven ranch or the proprietary Rob sauce. There\u2019s also a cauliflower Not Chicken version that was an instant hit with our resident vegetarian daughter.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Haven Hot Chicken\u2019s sides can be a lot of fun as well. There are braised skin-on French fries, collard greens, creamy vinegar slaw and garlic-dill pickles. But my favorite side is the esquites, the off-the-cob variant of the Mexican, grilled corn, street food favorite known as elote.<\/p>

And finally, I found the banana pudding absolutely charming. Made with vanilla rum pudding, sliced banana, Nilla wafers and fresh whipped cream, it activated pleasure centers in my brain forgotten since childhood.<\/p>

Beyond loving the food, I\u2019m tickled by the Tendie Roulette challenge, where you get one chicken or Not Chicken jumbo tendie of each of the five spice levels. If you\u2019re someone who rubs your eyes in disbelief or when they tear up, this would be the wrong time.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Having once helped open a chain of Empanada Joe\u2019s restaurants in New York City, I couldn\u2019t help noting that the Haven Hot Chicken concept has been carefully branded and has obvious expansion potential. Strong believers in giving back, the owners of Haven Hot Chicken have started One Percent for the People, through which they will donate 1% of the restaurant\u2019s proceeds to Connecticut-based organizations, selected on a monthly basis, that \u201cfocus on equality for all people.\u201d<\/p>

Because hot fish is a variation on hot chicken, I reached out to Sobocinski and asked if they had plans to introduce it in the future. His response: \u201cWe tested hot cod. [It] was sooooo good! 100% [we] will\u00a0 be doing it in the future.\u201d I am so jazzed to try it when it becomes available.<\/p>

Not only do I like where Haven Hot Chicken has come from, and where it is now, I like where it appears to be headed.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Saturday, October 17, was the public opening of Haven Hot Chicken in downtown New Haven\u2014and there was a line down the block. Earlier in the week, my wife Ann and I were the first to attend the press opening of this exciting new Nashville hot chicken restaurant created by a team of industry veterans well known to followers of the Elm City food scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sidebar_toogle":false,"sidebar_date":"","sidebar_drop":"","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[158,152,161,150,147,156,162,149,157,148,160,151,159],"class_list":["post-2391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-posts","tag-refractualism","tag-craig-sklar","tag-empanada-joes","tag-etkin-tekin","tag-haven-hot-chicken","tag-hot-chicken","tag-hot-fish","tag-jason-sobocinski","tag-m-j-deangelo","tag-nashville-hot-chicken","tag-one-percent-for-the-people","tag-rob-latronica","tag-thornton-prince-iii","entry","has-media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctdish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctdish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctdish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctdish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctdish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2391"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctdish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2451,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctdish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391\/revisions\/2451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctdish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctdish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddabl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