Dining Spotlight: Chicken, waffles a great pair

Catchy combo works well with special Onix touches

By Peggy Burch

Friday, June 26, 2009

When I first heard Onix on South Main described as a "chicken-and-waffle restaurant" -- as if that was as common a term as "seafood restaurant" or "steak house" -- I got curious about the origin of that unlikely food combination.

Waffles seem like breakfast fare. Fried chicken does not.

A little online research made it clear that there's no one story about how the two came together. The Food Timeline (foodtimeline.org) quotes speculation that chicken and waffles appeared on the same plate in America after Thomas Jefferson brought a waffle iron back from France in the 1790s. On a Virginia plantation, apparently, that inspired the "hearty Sunday morning meal before a long day in church."

The Wells Restaurant in Harlem, which opened in 1938, is called the "home" of chicken and waffles. There, the story goes, early-morning club-hoppers couldn't decide whether they wanted breakfast or dinner, so they had some of both.

Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles in Los Angeles gets credit for popularizing the dish in the 1970s, with the help of celebrity fans Will Smith, Snoop Dogg and Arsenio Hall. And Gladys Knight and Ron Winans started a chicken and waffles franchise in Atlanta in the 1990s.

At Onix in Downtown Memphis, the dish is done with Buffalo-style wing pieces and drummettes, with a $3 waffle on the side.

When you order your wings -- in 7-, 15-, 20- or 30-piece batches ranging in price from $8 to $24 -- you get a choice from "Onix flavors" that range from "Mild," which is medium hot; to "Hot," which is very hot; to "Mild Mild," which is sweet.

Chicken here comes in dry, battered and honey-glazed versions, and one of the honey glazes is barbecue flavored. They're all good, so splitting the order makes sense. Our first visit, we got battered and honey-glazed wings on one plate. Next time, we ordered the dry lemon pepper version -- we asked the server to describe it, and she patiently said, "Uh, it has lemon, and pepper." It may sound simple, but to me, this was the best of the styles. It's tart, with juices sealed in by the lemon, a meal that's as much about the chicken as it is about the sauce.

The waffle on our first visit was thick and fluffy -- taken off the iron at exactly the right moment.

Other entrees we had that are well worth writing about are the shrimp, the fried chicken and, the most elegant of the dishes we tried, the grilled chicken "Ofredo," penne pasta in a very rich cream sauce topped with generous cuts of grilled chicken breast. The chicken was so fine, we asked about the marinade. The server first told us it was "in house," and said that probably meant it was a secret. But she returned in a bit to explain that "in-house" referred to the kitchen's made-from-scratch batters and sauces. This marinade, she said, had a Worcestershire base.

The shrimp was fried in a light and grainy batter that stood the test of time -- leftovers heated in a microwave the next day were still crunchy. The fried chicken batter is thick but crisp, in other words perfectly satisfying. It came with excellent garlic mashed potatoes.

The force behind Onix is Curtis Chism Jr., whose father owns Best Wings, which opened on Summer at East Parkway a decade ago. Chism Jr. has adapted what he learned managing Best Wings for his dad -- the sauce options, for instance -- but he's placed the down-home chicken wing on plates in a sophisticated, club setting.

Onix is in the former Zanzibar restaurant location, in a charming cluster of red-brick buildings at South Main and Huling. The walls have panels in soothing shades of orange, yellow, green and lavender, which provide backdrops for large-scale contemporary paintings from Ephraim Urevbu's Art Village Gallery next door. A bar of brushed steel is at the back of the room, under a halogen glow, and the distressed wood floors tie the chic and cozy elements together.

At night, Onix specializes in pink drinks: X-Rated Flirtinis, with vodka and Fusion liqueur, and Onix Blushes, with vodka and peach schnapps, were going by on trays at regular intervals last Saturday night, when the tables were occupied by a crowd in mostly casual-glamorous dress.

The restaurant has live R&B and jazz Thursday through Saturday nights.

--Peggy Burch: 529-2392

Onix

Address: 412 S. Main

Telephone: (901) 552-4609

Hours: Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Lunch is served Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Price: $$

Handicapped access: Yes

Alcoholic beverages: Full bar

Don't miss: Chicken and waffles, Chicken Ofredo, shrimp