Restaurant in New York City, United States
Michelin-recognized fried chicken, easy to book.
Chick Chick is a Michelin Bib Gourmand-recognized (2024 and 2025) Korean-leaning Asian kitchen on the Upper West Side, priced at $$ and built around fried chicken with a sticky black pepper soy glaze and a kimchi-and-tobiko fried rice. Chef Jun Park's narrow, casual room is one of the clearer value arguments in New York's Asian dining category. Book 10 to 14 days ahead for weekends.
If you visited Chick Chick once and left wondering whether it would hold up on a second visit, the answer is yes. Chef Jun Park's Upper West Side spot at 618 Amsterdam Ave earns its Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition (back-to-back in 2024 and 2025) not on novelty but on consistency: the fried chicken is still the reason to come, the $$ price point still makes it one of the better-value decisions you can make in this city, and the room still fills up fast enough that you should not assume walk-in availability. Book ahead. More on that below.
This is a narrow, deep room on a corner of Amsterdam Avenue, wood-panelled walls lit by pendant lights, with an open kitchen visible from most tables. The format is casual and the price tier is accessible — $$ puts you well below the $300-per-head ceiling of the city's Korean tasting-room circuit. The cuisine is Asian with Korean leanings: fried chicken anchors the menu, but the kitchen works across a range of formats that reward return visits and, as the editorial angle here demands, deserve particular attention for how they translate into weekend dining.
The Michelin description on record is specific enough to be useful. The fried chicken arrives with crisp amber skin and ivory meat, the seasoning built around sticky-sweet black pepper soy. That flavour profile , salty, sweet, with the textural contrast of lacquered skin against tender interior , is the sensory throughline of the menu. The fried rice documented in the same record is built around Chinese sausage, tobiko, and kimchi, finished with a runny fried egg. That combination of brine, ferment, and richness is not accidental: it reads as a kitchen that understands how to layer contrast within a single dish. Both items point toward a menu that rewards ordering broadly rather than treating this as a single-dish destination.
Fried chicken and egg-topped rice are, functionally, weekend food. The format here is not a formal tasting progression; it is the kind of sharing-friendly, flavour-forward cooking that makes sense when you have time to work through a table of dishes rather than a fixed course. For a late Saturday or Sunday visit, that matters. The Upper West Side location means foot traffic is high on weekends, which feeds directly into the booking guidance below. If you are treating this as a special-occasion meal , a birthday lunch, a family gathering, a date that does not require a four-figure bill , the combination of Michelin credibility and $$ pricing makes Chick Chick a practical choice. You get the signal value of a recognized room without the financial commitment of Atomix or the formality of a white-tablecloth evening.
Booking difficulty is rated Easy for Chick Chick, which means you are not competing with the 28-day-out reload culture that defines harder reservations in New York. That said, easy does not mean same-day. A neighbourhood room with Bib Gourmand recognition and a 4.6 Google rating across 414 reviews draws a regular crowd, and weekends fill faster than weekdays. The practical guidance: book 5 to 7 days out for a weekday visit, and 10 to 14 days for a Saturday or Sunday. If you are planning around a specific occasion, two weeks is a comfortable buffer. Walk-in attempts on a weekend evening are a gamble. The room is narrow and the tables are not excess inventory.
For Asian dining with Korean influence at this price point, Chick Chick does not have many direct competitors in the Upper West Side specifically. Downtown, you have more options in the Korean corridor, but Chick Chick is the kind of neighbourhood anchor that draws diners from outside the immediate area. For Asian cooking in New York more broadly, Pearl also covers Cha Kee and 53 as reference points in adjacent categories. Internationally, the comparison set includes taku in Cologne and Jun's in Dubai for readers tracking Chef Park's influence across Asian-inflected kitchens globally.
Book Chick Chick for a weekend meal when you want the credibility of a Michelin-recognized kitchen without the spend or formality that usually accompanies it. The flavour profile is confident, the value is clear, and the room delivers on repeat visits. If you are planning a longer New York trip, see our full New York City restaurants guide, and consider pairing with our New York City hotels guide or bars guide for a complete itinerary. For experiences beyond dining, our New York City experiences guide covers the broader picture.
For weekday visits, 5 to 7 days is usually sufficient. For weekends, aim for 10 to 14 days out , the room is narrow, the Bib Gourmand recognition drives consistent demand, and Saturday evenings fill faster than the Easy booking difficulty rating might suggest. If you are planning around a birthday or special occasion, two weeks gives you a solid buffer.
It is a casual, neighbourhood room on the Upper West Side with $$ pricing and back-to-back Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition for 2024 and 2025. The kitchen does Asian cooking with Korean leanings, anchored by fried chicken. Order broadly , the fried rice is also documented as a standout. Do not treat this as a single-dish stop. It is not a formal or white-tablecloth experience, which is precisely its strength at this price point.
Yes. The narrow, deep room format typical of Upper West Side neighbourhood spots means counter or two-leading seating is usually available for solo diners. At $$ pricing, you can work through two or three dishes without the bill becoming a consideration. For solo Asian dining in New York, Chick Chick is a more comfortable and affordable option than the counter-only omakase format you find further downtown.
There is no tasting menu on record for Chick Chick. This is an à la carte neighbourhood restaurant, not a prix-fixe or omakase operation. If a structured tasting format is what you want in Korean-influenced cooking in New York, Atomix is the relevant reference at the $$$$ tier. Chick Chick is the right choice when you want flexibility and value, not a fixed progression.
At $$ with Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition two years running and a 4.6 Google rating across over 400 reviews, yes. The Bib Gourmand is specifically awarded for quality cooking at accessible prices, so the value case is externally validated, not just a local reputation. For the Upper West Side, it is one of the clearer value propositions in the Asian dining category.
No specific bar seating is documented for Chick Chick. The room is described as narrow and deep with an open kitchen, which suggests the layout is primarily table-based. If bar-style seating for solo or casual dining is important to you, confirm availability when booking rather than assuming it.
Based on verified data: the fried chicken (crisp skin, black pepper soy glaze) and the fried rice (Chinese sausage, tobiko, kimchi, runny fried egg) are the two dishes specifically flagged in the Michelin record. Both reflect the kitchen's Korean-leaning Asian approach. Order both on a first or return visit , they are complementary rather than redundant.
No formal dress code is on record. This is a $$ neighbourhood restaurant, not a fine-dining room. Smart casual , the kind of outfit you would wear to a well-regarded neighbourhood spot , is appropriate. You are not underdressed in jeans, and there is no need to dress up for the room's formality level.
| Venue | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Chick Chick | $$ | — |
| Le Bernardin | $$$$ | — |
| Atomix | $$$$ | — |
| Eleven Madison Park | $$$$ | — |
| Masa | $$$$ | — |
| Per Se | $$$$ | — |
Key differences to consider before you reserve.
A day or two ahead is usually enough. Chick Chick is rated easy to book by Pearl, which puts it in a different category from the 28-day reload culture at harder New York reservations. That said, weekend evenings on the Upper West Side fill faster than weeknights, so same-day walk-ins are a gamble worth avoiding on Fridays and Saturdays.
Come expecting a narrow, wood-panelled room on a corner of Amsterdam Avenue with an open kitchen you can watch from your table. Chef Jun Park runs an Asian kitchen with Korean leanings at a $$ price point, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand recognitions for 2024 and 2025 confirm this is not a random neighbourhood spot. Order the fried chicken — it is the dish the Michelin inspectors called out specifically.
Yes. The room is narrow and deep with counter-style visibility of the open kitchen, which makes solo eating feel comfortable rather than awkward. At $$ per head with dishes like fried chicken and egg-topped fried rice, the format suits a single diner ordering two dishes without overspending.
Chick Chick does not operate as a tasting menu restaurant. The format is casual sharing-style Asian with Korean influence, not a sequenced progression. If you want an omakase or tasting format at this price tier, Chick Chick is not the right choice — but that is not what it is trying to be.
At $$, yes — this is one of the clearer value cases in New York dining. Two consecutive Michelin Bib Gourmand awards (2024 and 2025) are specifically given to restaurants offering good cooking at moderate prices, so the price-to-quality argument here has independent verification behind it.
Bar seating is not confirmed in the available venue data for Chick Chick. The room is described as narrow and deep with table seating facing the open kitchen. check the venue's official channels at 618 Amsterdam Ave to confirm seating options before arriving.
The fried chicken is the anchor order — Michelin inspectors specifically described its crisp amber skin and sticky-sweet black pepper soy seasoning. The fried rice, built with Chinese sausage, tobiko, and kimchi and finished with a runny egg, is the second dish worth ordering. Those two alone represent the core of what Chef Jun Park is doing here.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
