The trend for ghost kitchens is to focus on chicken, as we’ve seen with Duck Lips Hot Chicken, Midcoast Wings and It’s Just Wings, to name a few. Now we can add the Nitty Gritty‘s Cluck to the list.
The menu is very pricey for what you get. You start by picking your base item, then choosing mandatory sides that range from $2-$4.60. Expect to spend about $80 for a family of four.
The fried chicken is breaded in cornmeal, making it different from fried chicken at other restaurants/ghost kitchens. It had a good crunch, but it needed more seasoning. At least the chicken inside was moist. In the pretzel sandwich ($12.25 base), the bacon and the mustard provided most of the flavor, as the pretzel bun tasted like a regular bun.
The ghost pepper sandwich ($12.25 base) was quite disappointing. It’s got bacon, swiss and a brioche bun, which were fine, but the ghost pepper ranch sauce had absolutely no heat. It’s like the kitchen staff smeared regular ranch sauce on it, which I suspect was the case. I wonder if the other sandwiches on the menu, such as Thai green curry ($10.99 base) and Maui Wowee ($12.99 base), also don’t live up to their taste expectations.
The wings ($13.99) were a bright spot, though the menu doesn’t tell you how many you’ll get. They’re plump and juicy, and you can choose various rubs (e.g. lemon pepper) and sauces. I didn’t order Buffalo sauce but got it anyway, and it had a pleasant spiciness to it.
As no surprise, the build-your-own burger ($9.99 base) is exactly the Gritty burger without the Gritty sauce. Speaking of which, I was guessing ahead of time that the Comeback sauce was going to be Gritty sauce, but it was actually more savory, and I loved it.
Of note, you also can order an Impossible burger ($13.99 base), salads and various appetizers, such as sweet corn bites ($10.99 with Comeback sauce). I finished my meal with the bourbon peaches ‘n cream ($6.99), a decadent butter cake that had an ample amount of tasty peaches.
Cluck is based in the Nitty Gritty’s downtown location. You can order through Grubhub, DoorDash, EatStreet and UberEats for lunch and dinner daily.
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See more photos in our Cluck Flickr album.
Tags: American, downtown, ghost kitchen
