Spiciest Dish in Columbus Series: Roosters

We’d heard tell of a rival to the Atomic Wings at Quaker Steak called “Nu-Killer” (use your inner George Bush) so we scooted on down to Roosters this week to see what all the hubbub was about.

With locations scattered all over Ohio, Kentucky and one in West Virginia, we figured this was close enough to home to make the list. Heading in to snag our takeout order, we immediately noticed that people love this place. At 5pm on a weekday the place was packed and there were already parties that needed to wait to be seated. It’s similar to Winking Lizard when it comes to style, lots of wood and a comfy atmosphere, but the wings are very different.

Looking through the menu we noticed that the wings are breaded, one of the few spots in Columbus to be able to have that as a claim. With 11 wing sauces ranging from Teriyaki to Nu-Killer, they slap their fresh wings through some breading, cook it “in 100% zero trans fat soy oil” and then toss it in any of their sauces. We weren’t sure what to expect, so we snagged a lower heat boneless wing order with the Carolina Gold sauce, a 10-wing traditional in Nu-Killer sauce and tator tots with their Roosters Spicy Ranch because this is the Midwest and we love us some ranch.

First up, you know we have to talk about the Nu-Killer sauce. After all, that’s what brought you here right? When opening up the box to take a look, the first thing we noticed is that these are some huge wings! The flats still have the tips and the drummies are the equivalent of the drums of an Arnold Schwarzenchicken. While most places in Columbus take 15 or so wings to fill us up, we almost called it quits around 7 or 8 with these Roosters wings. These are definitely the beefiest chicken wings in the city, so props to Roosters for that.

From the above picture, you can catch a glimpse of the redness that greets you and the seeds that say, “hey, why are you doing this?” We were unable to confirm, but the flavor and heat of the wings is similar to a habanero/cayenne base, bringing it in much lower than some of the other wings we’ve tried recently. Digging in there was one lone sniffle and that was after most of the box was gone. The wings themselves are cooked well and we’ll say it again, there is so much cluckin’ meat on these bones. They’re yuge! Is it one of the spiciest dishes in Columbus? Not by a long shot. Is it a great wing and one we would want to eat again? 100%. We were skeptical about the breading, but one of the issues we had with the Smokehouse wings was that they didn’t hold the sauce well. Roosters sauces gets into every nook and cranny of these traditional wings.

Onto the boneless Carolina Gold we got.

These are extremely different from other boneless wings we’ve had in Columbus. Having peeped the traditional wings, with bubbles of breading, we expected the same from the boneless. While the breading isn’t the crazy bubbled up breading we were expecting, the chicken is good quality and the Carolina Gold was a nice mustard-y partner to the Nu-Killer wings. Not much else to say about it other than good quality and a tasty sauce (not spicy, nor should it be, just tasty).

This was our first trip to Roosters and it’s definitely a contender for a place to hit up on game day. The heat level of Nu-Killer was much lower than we’d been told, but the wings themselves are immense and packed with flavor. If you’re only seeking heat it may be possible to ask for no sauce and then toss them yourself in some Fartley Farms hot sauce or whatever floats your boat heat-wise, but if you’re just looking for tasty wings, look no further.

As mentioned there are quite a few locations in Central Ohio, but also around the rest of Ohio and into a few other states.

Look below for more in our spiciest dish in Columbus series and hit us up if you have any suggestions that are not already on our list!

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