Wednesday, for people of a certain generation, was Prince spaghetti day. In Woods Hole, during the off-season, it’s become fried chicken day.
On nearly every Wednesday from October through Memorial Day — I say nearly because they do mix in a few tasting-menu nights and put the chicken on the back burner — Water Street Kitchen offers a different take on that old Southern classic, fried chicken.
Yes, the Woods Hole restaurant with a fish in its logo and lots of great and elegant seafood on its menu (torched scallops, Arctic char, and cioppino among them) turns into finger-lickin’ chicken heaven.
“We’re definitely not exclusively seafood,” says Molly Wilson, the wife of the husband-and-wife team of John and Molly Wilson at Water Street Kitchen. “We do a lot of seafood because it’s in demand and it’s local.”
Water Street Kitchen, which is at the former site of Fishmonger Cafe, is just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Steamship Authority ferry terminal in Woods Hole. The Wilsons began operating there just two and a half years ago, and are still the new kids on the block.
John, who developed his cooking credentials in the respected Pittsburgh food scene, likes to change things up. He incorporates weekly themes as one way to add spice and variety.
The $25 fried chicken special (you’ll have enough for Thursday’s lunch) was another way to offer a night where locals might put down their spatulas and go out for a bite to eat instead.
“The culinary genius is all him,” Molly Wilson told me. “There’s no place on our menu for fried chicken. This allows us to be more casual and have more fun.”
She had her doubts the chicken night would fly. She’s doubtful no more. “He knew it was going to be a winner from the beginning,” she said. “It’s fun, more affordable, outside the box of the high-end restaurant we are.”
John said the idea was launched from a special he put on the menu with Korean flavors that included a plum sauce. The tempura batter-fried chicken got a thumbs-up from the staff to the point where John cooked it up a couple of times for staff dinners.
“We were looking for ideas for the off-season for stuff that’s a little more accessible and little cheaper for locals and friends who would come in,” John said of how the fried chicken idea was hatched.
But don’t expect the same fried chicken every week. John mixes that up, too. He has a list of 30 different recipes, and he also uses a variety of sides, depending on the season. When fried chicken returned on Wednesday, Oct. 3, for example, he featured a fingerling potato salad made from locally sourced potatoes, and a butternut squash cornbread to take advantage of the ingredients still available from local farms. The second week was all about the Mexican influence of “black beans, tomato rice, avocado crema, charred tomatillo salsa, and tortillas.”
“It’s a simple food that can be done well,” John said of fried chicken. “It’s a nice surprise that it’s been popular.”
Every Wednesday when Water Street Kitchen has its fried chicken special, you’ll hear people walking in the door asking Molly if there is any left. It almost always sells out. “It’s taken off, and become our busiest night of the week besides Saturday,” she said.
“I love fried chicken, and it’s kind of one of those things people grew up on,” John said. “It’s had a cult following over the past couple of years, and it’s gotten popular.”
John and Molly met at a Pittsburgh restaurant they both worked at. Molly grew up in Falmouth, about a mile from the Woods Hole restaurant she now owns and operates with her husband.
Pittsburgh’s loss is our gain.
“After we left Pittsburgh, we were searching around for where we wanted to live,” John said. “We spent a summer here, then took a tour of the U.S., and looked back and realized what a great community [Woods Hole] is. Then we found this great opportunity at 56 Water St.”
Molly is back home, and the restaurant has become even more of family affair, with her sister, Chelsea Doohan, as bar manager extraordinaire. (She makes some top-shelf concoctions.)
“I feel incredibly lucky,” Molly said, noting that the Water Street Kitchen couple have a son and another child on the way. “I walk into this dining room every day that looks out over water. It’s amazing. It’s wonderful.”
Water Street Kitchen, 56 Water St., Woods Hole. Open 5 pm Tuesday through Sunday. 508-540-5656; waterstreetkitchen.com.