Best Fried Chicken In The Bay Area

Located in Bernal Heights, The Front Porch specializes in down-home Southern cooking. Customers flock here for all manner of Southern classics like blackened catfish and shrimp and grits. There are a variety of ways to enjoy the outstanding fried chicken. Options include multi-piece buckets and chicken-and-waffles. A variety of favorite sides are available as well, from garlic mashed potatoes and green beans with bacon to collards cooked with ham and fluffy biscuits. Don't miss the delectable dessert options like the bourbon pecan pie or Brown Bagged Beignets.

Another San Francisco fried chicken favorite, the Hard Knox Café also serves up tantalizing homestyle Southern food. The deliciously crisp chicken can be ordered as a 3-piece meal with sides, on a plate of chicken and waffles, or in a sandwich or salad. Both spicy and regular versions are offered. Sides include collard greens, candied yams and black-eyed peas and rice. Not to be missed are the house-made fresh corn muffins. Diners looking to round out their meal with dessert should head to Hard Knox's second location at 2448 Clement St.

The Southern Café is downtown Oakland's soul food gem. Open five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday, the café dishes out some of the best fried chicken in the Bay Area. Additionally, all manner of Southern favorites are on the menu. Diners can choose anything from slow-cooked, gravy-smothered oxtails and chitterlings to fried oysters and blackened salmon. Polish off a plate of chicken with down-home desserts like peach cobbler and sweet potato pie.

SoMa's Little Skillet provides a true hole-in-the-wall comfort food experience. Opened in 2008, the restaurant operates off an alleyway where diners place orders at a window through the outside wall. Incredibly fresh, fantastically juicy and crispy, Little Skillet's chicken is sure to please even the pickiest of fried chicken connoisseurs. Open seven days a week, this is the perfect spot to join some friends to snap up a hot plate of chicken and waffles with a crisp cold craft beer to wash it all down. Plenty of side fixings are available such as mac and cheese, cheddar grits, and jalapeno coleslaw.

Nestled in downtown Berkeley, Angeline's Louisiana Kitchen serves up crispy buttermilk battered fried chicken to hungry customers every day of the week. Sides range from blue lake beans to mashed sweet potatoes. The menu also offers other Louisiana-centric Southern favorites like Crawfish Etouffee and Voo Doo Shrimp. Uprooted Southerners will delight in Angeline's sweet tea and Swamp Water (an Arnold Palmer-esq mixture of half lemonade half tea).