Happy Bird – restaurant review

The future of street food trends can be read in the grease stains of artisan chicken boxes.

Fried chicken selling itself as upmarket isn’t new. The viral YouTuber Chicken Connoisseur, who started off reviewing the chicken shops of London in his Pengest Munch series now has an app and a Channel 4 show, and, here in Bristol, places like Wapping Wharf’s Chicken Shed have already had their rise and fall, in this particular case reopening as Root less than a year later with an emphasis squarely on veg.

Next up to the plate is Happy Bird: an organic chicken shop on Whiteladies Road that claims to serve the best chicken in town.

Fed up with the existing “narrow and low-brow” chicken shops in Bristol, Happy Bird sources from free-range farms and offers “bespoke sauces” – a fancy way of saying they make their own.

Happy Bird’s clean and simple exterior has a satisfyingly minimalist décor with even the grout between the white tiles matching the green and yellow colour scheme. A light smattering of customers of all ages were tucking into their food with relish, beneath bespoke wooden signs blazoned with slogans like ‘tasty birds’.

The backlit menu above the long white-tiled counter offered the usual burgers, fries and shakes that you’d expect from a fast-food joint, but also healthier options including wraps and salads.

Things got a bit shaky, however, when I scoured the menu for arguably the most important part of fast food, artisanal or nay: the price.

A chicken burger starts at £8. I steadied myself on the white-tiled counter. With the addition of fries and a can of coke you were looking down the barrel of a £14 bill. No matter how good, that is a lot of money for fast food.

Free-range? For the price you’re paying they could have put the chickens through private school, and the potatoes through weekend swimming lessons.

A chicken burger with a generous portion of fries and two home-made sauces

My burger was, however, damn good. The chicken was perfectly crispy (so often the failing point when ordered in burger form) and the bun was light and briochey. The extras of avocado, bacon, cheese and chillies (£1.50 for any or all) were bountiful, and the fries (£3) were so plentiful that I couldn’t finish them.

Now on to those bespoke sauces. If you’re going to give them all fancy names, they had better live up to the hype – and happily they did. The China Minor was a creamy blend of garlic and chilli goodness that kicked standard mayonnaise into touch, while the Caribbee was a masterpiece of thyme and citrus, consumable on it’s own by the spoonful.

Whether or not gentrified versions of age-old fast food will stand the test of time remains to be seen, as will whether residents of Clifton will embrace the new restaurant in their midst, sitting somewhere between Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Miss Millies.

Regardless, I rolled back down the hill with a belly heavy and a wallet light as a feather from one of those happy birds.

Happy Bird, Clifton Down Shopping Centre, Whiteladies Road, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 2NN
0117 973 7300

www.happy-bird.com