Meet Chi Chi’s, New Orleans’s Cool New Hangout for Korean Fried Chicken and Onigirazu

Korean fried chicken two ways from Chi Chi’s Chicken and Beer. | Randy Schmidt/Chi Chi’s Chicken and Beer

“I wanted to bring an attention to detail to something as simple as fried chicken and shaved ice,” says Adolfo Garcia III

When Adolfo Garcia III decided to return to his native New Orleans to open a restaurant after cooking in Panama City, Paris, and New York, he knew he wanted to bring something fresh to town with him. The result is Chi Chi’s Chicken and Beer, an impossibly cool Freret Street shop serving a chaotic mashup of Korean fried chicken and Japanese sushi sandos that he and his fiancee Sophia Petrou opened in September.

“We approached it as: ‘What do we want to see in New Orleans?’” says Garcia of the restaurant (4714 Freret Street). In menu and style, Chi Chi’s reflects his and Petrou’s favorite way to eat, evoking Korean chimaek-style dining that they see as almost parallel to the Louisana crawfish boil tradition. “A boil is about the crawfish of course, but it’s also about the experience — something that brings people together, about having a good time. When people from New Orleans would visit us in New York, we would always go to Koreatown for fried chicken or Korean barbecue because it felt so similar,” Garcia says.

Thus, the idea for Chi Chi’s formed, with its focus on four main menu categories: Korean chicken wings, fried chicken sandwiches, onigirazu (sushi sandwiches), and kakigōri (Japanese shaved ice), served alongside three-liter towers of beer and soju in a bustling, compact space adorned with a playful cartoon aesthetic.

Illustrations on the wall at Chi Chi’s.

It’s the first restaurant from Garcia and Petrou, who each hail from New Orleans restaurant families. Garcia, who goes by Fito, is the son of Adolfo Garcia, the chef behind long-running New Orleans restaurants Ancora Pizzeria and La Boca Steakhouse. Petrou’s family runs breakfast staple Russell’s Marina Grill. Garcia has cooked at Frenchie in Paris and Momofuku and Goodman’s Bar in New York, while Petrou most recently worked as maître d’ at Roscioli NYC and as an all-around thought partner for hitmaker Ariel Arce.

While Garcia always knew he wanted to move back to New Orleans and open a restaurant one day, he was egged on in recent years by three influential chefs in particular: Joaquin Rodas of Bacchanal, Edgar Caro of Baru and Brasa, and Alfredo Nogueira of Cane & Table and Vals. “They were like, ‘When are you going to come home and put on for your city? We’re waiting on the next generation,’” Garcia says. “I’ve never felt so embraced in my life.”

The atmosphere at Chi Chi’s is meant to mimic the Koreatown after-hours restaurants frequented by service industry workers in New York that Garcia and Petrou grew so fond of. Falling in love with the space helped solidify the concept, says Petrou. “It has an inherent New York feel. And we’ve made it more so — we squeeze tables in corners so they’re almost on top of each other, bring in extra stools to fit people in with their friends. It’s got the big tall windows, and at night it’s all lit up. I think we’ve created a really cool atmosphere,” she says.

Chi Chi’s is all about little details, Garcia says. Just like the space, “I wanted to bring that same attention to detail to something as simple as fried chicken and shaved ice. Some of it may be lost on some people, but I hope it will mean something to others,” he says. Here’s a look at the menu.

The Star: Korean chicken wings

Garcia marinates the chicken for 24 hours in a blend of Korean rice wine, peanut oil, soy sauce, and a spice blend. “There’s an initial dredge of rice flour and all-purpose flour followed by the first fry. Then, we use a velveting technique with an ice-cold batter, then it gets a second fry,” says Garcia. After, the wings get sauced with either soy garlic or gochujang (or customers can order a mix of the two glazes). The wings come with a side of tangy pickled daikon, as is tradition, and can be ordered in six-piece ($12), 12-piece ($20), or 20-piece ($32) plates.

The Supporting Character: Fried chicken sandwiches

There are two sandwich options: A classic Southern fried chicken sandwich served with buttermilk ranch, pickles, and shredded lettuce (“I had to have it,” says Garcia. “I am from New Orleans, after all”); and a Korean fried chicken sandwich, or the KFC, with gochujang, sesame cabbage slaw, and pickles. Both sandwiches are $12.

The Surprise Guest: Onigirazu

“We wanted to have a lighter option for people who don’t want fried chicken,” says Petrou of the sushi sandwiches. She and Garcia used to frequent a place in the East Village (Tokuyamatcha & Onigirazu Bar) for onigirazu — onigiri rice balls shaped into sandwich “bread,” sheathed in nori, and stuffed with fillings. Garcia started to make them at home, quickly realizing why they had to wait so long for their orders at Tokuyamatcha. “It’s such a process to make them,” he says. Chi Chi’s options are seasonal veggie ($10); spicy tuna cucumber ($12); salmon jalapeño ($14); and Korean fried chicken ($14).

The Sweet Finale: Kakigōri

“Almost every culture has their own shaved ice course,” Garcia says of kakigōri and its obvious parallel to New Orleans sno-balls. It wasn’t originally part of the plan, but Garcia had become “obsessed” with the dessert, even buying his own kakigōri ice machine and doing a few pop-ups around town. The difference is in the ice, much like how Hansen’s and other sno-ball shops use a patented, specific machine for their ice. Garcia makes all the syrups, he says, and filters the water for the ice blocks. There’s a seasonal flavor — summer melon — that will probably come off the menu soon, to be replaced by citrus in the winter, maybe a grape interim in the fall. But the matcha and strawberry cream (both $7) will stay on the menu all year long.

Chi’s Chi’s, at 4714 Freret Street, is open Wednesday from 5 to 9 p.m.; Thursday from 5 to 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from noon to 11 p.m.; and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.