Deciding to open a trendy upscale spot in the Manhattan right before the pandemic was enough to make chef Sung Park rethink some of his life choices.
“I’m so tired of fine dining,” Park told BK Reader outside his newest, food truck-sized kitchen in Bushwick, where he employs no more than three people. For many hours, Lucky Chix is just him and the grill.
“It’s a new challenge, to do something low-key. I found this spot and thought, this is actually what I’ve been looking for, for a long time. Everything is food,” he said.
Park has been working in kitchens since moving to the U.S. from Korea in the 1990s. He was a sous chef at the Michelin-starred Jean-Georges before going solo and opening the postage stamp-sized and well-reviewed Bistro Petit in Williamsburg in 2011. Losing the lease forced Park to relocate to a downtown Brooklyn Holiday Inn, where in 2018 he opened Brasserie Seoul, fusing Korean ingredients with French techniques; dishes like kimchi bouillabaisse and rice gnocchi. It was Park’s dream menu, he said at the time, but the location didn’t generate enough business.
A year later, he returned to the high dining world of Manhattan, this time on his own terms, opening the spacious Ivy Lane. Then the pandemic happened.
What Park is making now, he calls “everyday humble food.” Primarily: outsized chicken sandwiches, made in the southern tradition, give or take some shredded daikon pickles and generous helpings of gochujang aioli.
The idea to pivot to chicken came to him after Ivy Lane closed and Park briefly left the country to work for his brother in a restaurant in Seoul, where he learned how to make Korean fried chicken.
“It’s all about the brine,” he said, where chicken is "stewed" for over two days. The chicken itself is even more inventive, encased in breading that Park makes made of cornflakes and cornmeal, which he says took months to develop. It gives the sandwich a curiously unique crunch that nonetheless tastes as familiar as breakfast cereal or cornpone.
“I went around and tasted most of the chicken sandwiches in New York. And so many of them are mostly the same, and they’re mostly using chicken breast. That’s dry as hell,” said Park, who chose to go for enormous pieces of thigh meat. He also follows the popular trend of frying everything in beef tallow and, if you ask him, he will expound extemporaneously, and in great length, on its health benefits.
The sandwich is the big seller, but Park also fries other parts of the bird, like standard Korean fried chicken fare and a "whole Chix" for $28, a popular delivery order. If you come early enough, Park will make you a breakfast sandwich with a sausage he smashes on the grill.
In terms of seating, diners are making do with a handful of chairs wrapped around a single counter.
“The customers are mostly young people, from everywhere. Completely different crowd from fine dining, which is mostly reservations and wine service. But this is street food. A little better than street food, but it is street food. It’s a completely different game, one I’ve never done before, but I’m having a lot of fun,” he said.
Lucky Chix, located at 1533 Myrtle Ave., is open from Tuesday - Sunday, from 8:00 am–10:00pm.
