Ad Hoc

Yountville, CA

Thomas Kellar's Fried Chicken is infamous. Patrons rave that its the best around. It's also only served on Mondays, which makes it that much difficult to plan. So after plotting for weeks on when it would work for mine and Chu-Toro's schedule, we finally arrived in Yountville on a beautiful June night.


The menu is fixed priced with an appetizer, main with sides and dessert. We started with Blue Apron Ale, Kellar's specially exclusive beer only brewed for his restaurants. I had it for the first time this evening and have continued to order it at Bouchon and French Laundry.

Blue Apron Ale and Endive summer salad

The salad itself was light and fresh with endive, arugula, white peaches and marcona almonds. Chu-Toro really enjoyed it. Onto the main event.

Red Potatoes

Collard greens and bacon bits

TK's famous fried chicken

The small tabletop was quickly filled to capacity as the fried chicken, potatoes, collard greens and biscuits arrived. The first thought that stood out in my mind was the chicken was not oily. The chicken skin was crispy and beautifully browned without feeling greasy or over battered.  The inside was moist and piping hot. Overall a very good piece of fried chicken, but it did not blow me away like I was hoping for. To this day, it is not the best fried chicken I've ever had, that distinction belongs to a small inconspicuous joint in Phoenix, AZ called LoLo's. It probably doesn't help that this meal is $50 per person, a bargain given the namesake of the restaurant, but can't beat $11.95, the cost that fried chicken should really be. But I digress. The potatoes and collard greens were also a good accompaniment. The best part about it was that you could have seconds of anything you pleased. We had another round of biscuits.

Biscuit and jam

The thing that made the biscuit so memorable was really the side of jam. It was an amazing raspberry jam that  sweetened the flaky butter biscuit.

Blue Cheese dessert

The blue cheese course came with a very pleasant corn salsa which lightened the pungent smell of the blue cheese. In actually, the cheese itself was a quite mild blue and I enjoyed it a lot.

All in all, the meal was good, not extraordinary or up to par with Bouchon, but its a homey place that allows Kellar to serve comfort food at reasonable prices. I've been wanting to come back for his Sunday brunch which is supposed to be superb, but they don't open the patio for brunch, only dinner. The good news is his restaurants are extremely pet friendly and allow dogs on the patio of Ad Hoc and Bouchon. Next time we dine here, Shaddy will definitely be with us.

Rating 6.5/10

June 1, 2009

Shaddy Approved