In Atlanta, where chicken wing culture is a part of the city’s identity, one strip club’s offerings have earned high marks from patrons and local food critics.
And while the nondescript venue on Forsyth Street is widely known as one of the world’s most iconic strip clubs, becoming nationally recognized thanks to name-checks from rappers like Future and Drake, Magic City Kitchen has quietly built a reputation citywide largely due to its chicken wings.
A destination item with customers regularly showing up weekday afternoons for takeout orders, according to the club’s staff, chicken wings are Magic City’s most popular menu item, outpacing all other meals like its lamb chops and lobster tails.
The wings also took center stage, along with the dancers and famous clientele, in the five-part documentary Magic City: An American Fantasy, that premiered on Starz.
“The wings have always been popular,” said a longtime security employee who has worked multiple roles at the club over the past seven years and declined to give his name. “They’ve always been good.”
Last Friday, I stopped by the Magic City kitchen.
Under the leadership of “Miss Lorna,” a small team produces a variety of wing flavors, including lemon pepper, honey garlic, BBQ and Thai chili and, of course, naked. They’ve crafted signature flavors like their “LouWill Lemon Pepper BBQ” wings, named after the NBA player Lou Williams after he made headlines in 2020 for visiting the club while on a break from the NBA bubble during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I didn’t sneak out of the bubble to go to Magic City,” Williams said on an episode of Gil’s Arena in June.
“That’s not what happened. They excused me from the bubble to go to a funeral. The funeral home was a block away from Magic [City]. This is my hometown and if you know ATL, we eat in our strip clubs, that’s where you can find the best food.”
Although the kitchen, with an A rating from the Fulton County Board of Health, remains small as it is typically run by one cook during the day and three at night, they are thorough with how they prepare their chicken wings.
According to one of the cooks at the club, the wings are double-fried, a method that ensures crispiness, even when sauced. Outside of the flavors, the staple characteristic of the club’s wings is their small size, another cheat code.
The staff said because their wings are small, they can be cooked crispier than larger wings, and this also helps hold more flavor in one bite.
With over 200 reviews for the kitchen on Google, one customer named H.H wrote that they purchased a “couple hundred” wings from Magic City for an event, and they were a “hit at the party.” Another customer, Justin Nguyen, wrote the Magic City Kitchen “lived up to the hype” with its wings.
“I don’t even know where to get as good of wings in Atlanta,” wrote Nguyen, leaving the kitchen one of its several five-star reviews.
Eater Atlanta called them “well fried with a snappy skin,” and included them in its roundup of the best wings in the city in April. The Infatuation Atlanta gave the wings an 8 out of 10 rating and said the kitchen’s takeout operation draws “its own crowd.”
Magic City’s wings were voted “Best Wings in the City” in May for a social media contest with Atlanta Food Finders, a local social media page dedicated to showcasing restaurants across the city.
For Cole Brown, executive producer along with Jermaine Dupri of Magic City: An American Fantasy, the kitchen plays a key role in the club’s story.
“The Magic City wings are legendary,” Brown told Capital B Atlanta. “The kitchen in general has done so much to help spread the lore of the club across the city and beyond. So many of the most iconic stories we heard began with, ‘So I went to Magic City for some wings and then …’”
Brown said he believes the food offering is part of what sets the club apart.
“I can’t think of many other places in the world where people come to a strip club just for the food,” he said. “That is a uniquely Atlanta thing, and nowhere is it more prominent than Magic City.”
