Most menus let you point at a picture. A Nashville menu asks you a question first, and if you have not been asked it before, the honest reaction at the counter is to freeze and say "medium, I guess."
There are really only two decisions on ours. Neither is a trap.
Decision one: classic or hot
Our chicken tenders are listed as available in classic and hot. Classic is the same hand-breaded crust without the Nashville heat — it is not a lesser version or a kids' version, it is the same piece of chicken with a different finish. Hot is the one the style is named for.
If you are new to Nashville chicken and you order classic, you have not opted out of anything. You have ordered fried chicken, which is a fine thing to have ordered.
Decision two: your heat level on the Original Nashville
The Original Nashville sandwich is built as Nashville chicken, signature Nashville sauce, pickles and house slaw — and it asks you to choose your heat level when you order it.
Two things worth knowing before you answer.
The first is that the sandwich already carries its own counterweight. The pickles and the house slaw are on the build, not on the side. Acid and cold are the two things that pull heat back, and both are in your hand before you have added anything.
The second is that heat on fried chicken is cumulative in a way heat in a bowl of soup is not. A first bite that reads as comfortable can read as considerably less comfortable at bite six. If you are choosing between two rungs, the lower one leaves you somewhere to go next visit. The higher one does not.
Heat you add rather than order
There is a third route, and for a table with mixed tolerances it is usually the best one: order the chicken where you are comfortable and put the heat on the side.
Seven dipping sauces are on the menu — BBQ, garlic parmesan, garlic pepper, honey mustard, hot honey, signature and yellow mustard. Hot honey is the relevant one here: sweet and hot arriving together, controlled per bite instead of committed to for a whole sandwich.
Sweet against heat is not an improvisation on this menu either. It is already the design of two sandwiches: the Honey Butter Buzz pairs Nashville chicken with honey butter and American cheese, and the Nash and Smashed puts Nashville-style chicken on top of a smashed beef patty. Both use something rich to give the heat a shape.
What to put beside it
The sides are doing a job here, not just filling the tray:
- Mac & Cheese and mashed potatoes — the two starchiest things on the menu, and the most effective at resetting your palate between bites.
- Corn bread — sweet, dry, and good at absorbing.
- Waffle fries and the waffle — salt and surface area.
- Pickle bombs — more acid, if the slaw and pickles on the sandwich were the part you liked most.
To drink, four milkshakes (triple chocolate, cookies and cream, strawberry, coco pineapple) and four Smashed Blend mojitos (mango, passion fruit, peach, strawberry). A thick milkshake next to hot chicken is a cliché because it works.
If you are ordering for a group
- Split the order rather than averaging it. Classic and hot as separate line items beats one heat level that suits nobody.
- Take the sauces on the side and let people build their own.
- Size up in one place, not everywhere. Party wings run 5, 8, 12 and 16 pieces; one large shared box plus a couple of sandwiches covers a table better than six small orders.
The full menu has a photo of every item, and the locations page will tell you which stores are open now.