The Two Minute Review: Cluck Chicken

Ronan Doyle
2 days ago
2 min read

What should we know about Cluck Chicken?

Starting out as the “Cluck Truck” in Walkinstown back in 2020, Ian Ussher’s free range fried chicken concept Cluck has leveraged a fun and forthright social media presence, and a smart suite of daily offers to carve a niche in a crowded fast food market. Five years later, the truck’s been parked in favour of permanent locations in Tallaght’s The Square (where we went) and the Walkinstown Mall.

What’s on the menu?

Ussher’s a former Euro-Toques young chef of the year, and it shows in Cluck's homemade twists: roast garlic mayo rather than something smeared from a bucket; house pickles, not mass produced gherkins; a dripping cheese sauce, far from the preservative-packed easy-squeeze unguent you’ll get elsewhere. And that’s before we get to the tenderness of the buttermilk brined thighs, craggily crisp and intensely flavoured from a house dredge. As brought together in the buffalo-basted Hot Clucker burger (€10.95), it’s a testament to things here - fast food, sure, but not as you know it.

Competition is stiff on Korean fried chicken, with players like Chimac, Jaru and White Rabbit all very hard to beat – on the evidence of the wings (€10.60), there’s no threat of Cluck challenging their hold any time soon. On the meat itself we’ve no notes to offer, but the sticky-sweet sauce lacks the gochujang kick we crave. If you’re winging it, stick with buffalo instead.

BBQ wouldn’t be a bad choice either as we saw from the tenders (€15.95 with a choice of pimped fries) – this thick-as-it-gets sauce has a smoky-sweet staying power we kept tasting all night. For us the burger’s juicy thigh makes for the better bet to enjoy a full flavour profile, but anyone here for meat above all will relish the thick breast batons.

What will have us back the quickest is the Cluck gravy slathered over proper quality skin-on fries. There's a fortune to be made selling this by the bottle to those who’ve tried and failed to hit such heights from home drippings – nothing here showcases better how well-equipped this team is to make the most of a chicken.

Classic mac (€6) was overkill after all that, more thanks to an over-extended appetite than the quality – the same rich cheese sauce that’s spooned onto the burgers hosts the pasta pieces here, topped with crispy onions and shavings of sharp spring onion. Shared with the table it goes down a lot easier.

Ditto on an appreciably creamy Oreo shake (€6.50), one of six options. You’ll need a smaller order, a strong sweet tooth, or a young helper on hand to get through it all.

Why should I go?

Cluck’s superior quality is enough to cross the city for even before you factor in value, holding its own against far bigger competitors – especially with offers like free fries Fridays, wing Wednesdays, tender Tuesdays and Thursdays, and kids-eat-free Sundays to help you along. There are great savings to be had here if you time things right, and if you’re an ATF Insider you can get 20% off the bill in both locations all day Tuesday and Thursday.