Review of 'Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen'

A personal favourite

I am a big fan of the American Popeyes chain which features spicy, crispy fried chicken and biscuits - Classic southern US fast food. I have had it many times in both the US and abroad including, oddly, at the Hong Kong airport. When I heard they were coming to the London Stratford Westfield shopping centre I made plans to give them a visit. The first time we passed by (on the way to Wendy's) two days after it opened there was a huge queue which I understand was several hours long. Yeah, I love the chicken but was willing to wait until later for shorter queues. So, the other day we visited and the queues were significantly smaller with only a 10 minute wait at lunchtime on a Thursday.

The venue is in the food court of the shopping centre (on the lowest level of the mall) with both real people taking your orders as well self-service kiosks (you queue for either). The menu is fairly straight forward with various sizes and flavours of chicken (spicy or normal). There are chicken pieces, wings, tenders and sandwiches along with a number of sides including biscuits (which are included in most meals – delightfully light, classic southern US biscuits), gravy, fries and mash. There are a number of inexpensively priced meals from which we chose the “6 Piece Signature Louisiana Chicken Classic Meal” (£14.95) which included “6 pieces of chicken on the bone, a choice of either two regular fries or sides and two regular drinks”. We chose the spicy chicken option and our two sides were gravy and fries. We were given about half smaller pieces (wings, and legs) and half larger pieces (including a huge piece of breast).

The chicken was amazingly juicy with a super crunchy and tasty coating. Though we ordered spicy it was not too spicy hot but enough of a light kick to keep it interesting. The only complaint we had were that the seasoned fries were not hot, otherwise the meal was amazing though we did leave a lot of crumbs on the table from the crunchy coating…despite the great care we took in eating!

Sure, they are pretty much a one-trick pony but that one trick is done extraordinarily well. Absolutely delicious. KFC or Popeyes? No contest, Popeyes does the colonel one better. Here's hoping more shops open up across the country.

Rating: “I have absolutely no complaints”

Review Date: 2022-01-20

Cuisine: American/British

Address: 6 Westfield Ave, London E20 1EH ENGLAND

Public Transport: Stratford

Location: London (England) - Stratford

Map:

Telephone:

URL: https://www.popeyesuk.com/