S.F.’s Birdbox Opens in New York With Its Fried Chicken — Claw and All

On Jul 29, 2024

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I had just put the finishing touches on Eater’s Best Fried Chicken in NYC when I received an email from Zoee Wong, an R&D chef at Birdsong — the San Francisco restaurant with two Michelin stars. The email suggested I check out Birdsong’s fried chicken spinoff near Times Square called Birdbox.

Birdsong comes from Christopher Bleidorn and Aarti Shetty, and the Michelin review describes the cooking with live fire as having a sense of whimsy. It was here that the “highly Instagrammable” chicken sandwich with a claw took flight during the pandemic.

Back in 2021, Bleidorn told Eater SF that the sandwich had “taken on a life of its own.” It came about when Birdsong had a walk-in full of chickens, Eater reported, heads and feet still on. The chef thought their regulars might be intrigued by a sandwich with a claw. “Everyone sees the claw and takes photos … ” he says. “But this is the thing — you shouldn’t be scared of a sandwich with a claw. You should be scared of a sandwich without a claw,” he said, referring to industrial-grade chickens raised inhumanely.

So when lunchtime rolled around late last week, I found myself on the M20 bus heading north to check it out.

A theater type marquee with a coffee bar in front. — Entrance to the Backstage Food Hall, a ghost kitchen.

A window and a bank of green windows. — Inside is like an Off Off Broadway theater.

The address, 245 West 46th Street, just east of Eighth Avenue, turned out to be Backstage Food Hall, made to look like a Broadway theater. Entering the darkened space, I stumbled into what looked like a production of a lost Samuel Beckett play: A man sat in a window, head cradled in his hands as if waiting for delivery cyclists. In front of him were three tables, to his right, a bank of green numbered lockers, and beyond that, a pair of upright touch-screen consoles.

These consoles listed 20 restaurants, mainly featuring bowls, burgers, cookies, salads, and sushi, including Birdbox. (Eater is checking into whether Birdbox is a pop-up, here for the long haul, or introducing a Birdsong spinoff in a different location in the future.) The Birdbox menu offered several versions of a fried chicken sandwich, a vegetarian sandwich made of hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, as well as waffle fries, coleslaw, and four sauces. One sandwich caught my eye.

A fried chicken sandwich on a seeded roll with a claw sticking out. — Claude the Claw in Times Square.

A chicken foot with two sauces, one red one orange. — The bone turned out to be a talon.

Claude the Claw ($19) is described as a thigh and drum combination, and in the tiny photo, a bone seemed to be protruding. I ordered and the screen told me it would be ready in six to nine minutes. Nearly 30 minutes later, the guy in the window…