'Popeyes Doesn't Even Qualify as Fast Food' in New Orleans, Says Chef Kelly Fields

Kelly Fields, James Beard Award-nominated pastry chef and co-founder of Willa Jean, stepped up to profess adoration for home-grown biscuit and fried chicken chain, Popeyes. “In New Orleans, Popeyes doesn't even qualify as fast food, not the way that it would in any other city,” she writes on Munchies.

She points out that it’s more about the role the chicken plays in life in New Orleans (Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, every party) than the actual flavor of the chicken. But the biscuits?

I'm going to say this, full disclosure, as a restaurant owner of a restaurant known for their biscuits: Popeyes biscuits are a religion of their own. For sure. What puts them in this category? I'm going to go with butter. And it's not even good butter—it's pretty cheap butter—but the biscuits taste like butter and hardly anything else. Every couple of months I do a 'Biscuits and Bubbles' brunch at my house, and it's always biscuits, sausage gravy, and tons and tons of stuff. I always get 200 pieces of Popeyes and just have a mountain of Popeyes in my kitchen. It's amazing—and there's never as much leftover as I want there to be.

Let it be noted, Willa Jean’s menu includes an entire section called the Biscuit Situation.

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