included) instead of the usual
eight, showered with black
pepper, lard-fried in cast-iron
skillets, and served with slaw,
green beans, and margarine-
drizzled mashed potatoes.
Earlier this year, the culi-
nary tastemakers at the James
Beard Foundation rewarded
the restaurant’s adherence
to tradition by naming it
an “America’s Classic”—a
restaurant with “timeless
appeal” and deep roots in its
community. It was an honor
for Wagner’s, specifically, but
also national recognition for a
larger regional tradition.
“Wagner’s is the fried chicken
place around here,” the cashier
said. “That’s where I would go,
every time.”
There’s The Brau Haus,
also in Oldenburg, a German-
accented joint where the
sauerkraut balls and breaded
pork tenderloin sandwiches
(best with pickle and mus-
tard) are as noteworthy as the
chicken. In Brookville, Dairy
Cottage—a casual spot that
a Cincinnatian might call
a “creamy whip”—serves
chicken and soft serve, and
the nearby Pioneer Restau-
rant and Lounge has popular
homemade pies.
At Fireside Inn in
Enochsburg, many people
pair the chicken—batter-
fried, with potato chip–crisp
skin—with an “Enochsburg
Sunset,” the house cocktail
made with Maker’s Mark,
peach schnapps, amaretto,
orange and cranberry juices,
and Sprite. Klump’s Tav-
ern in Guilford serves fried
chicken only on Fridays and
Saturdays after 5 p.m. and
Sundays from noon to 7 p.m.
(or until sold out), but the
throwback bar and grill, in a
19th-century brick building,
is worth a special trip. St.
Leon Tavern anchors tiny
downtown St. Leon, Indiana,
with peppery chicken served
hot from the fryer.
At many of these restau-
rants, the chicken is fried to
order, so you can expect a
wait—and a crackling, fresh-
from-the-fat crust. Many
also serve a 10-piece bird, and
many are heavy-handed with
the black pepper.
But Wagner’s stands out.
I already knew it when the
cashier at a gas station in
Batesville, next door to Old-
enburg, rolled his eyes at my
question about other good
fried chicken spots in the
area. “Wagner’s is the fried
chicken place around here,”
he said. “That’s where I would
go, every time.”
The lard makes a dif-
ference. Most of the other
joints fry in oil. Lard-fried
chicken has a deeply savory
flavor—also evident in the
gravy, made from pan drip-
pings—and an incomparably
crisp crust.
The cooks at Wagner’s
really shower on the black
pepper, too, to the extent that
one Oldenburg local shared
a good-natured complaint:
“You never know how much
of that pepper you’re going
to get!”
In the Nashville hot
chicken era, you could make a
joke about how the chicken at
Wagner’s—so peppery that
it’s almost hot itself—is our
Midwestern equivalent, made
for our salt-and-pepper
palates. It should be a point
of pride for the region. They
don’t make chicken like this
in Tennessee.
The first time I went to
Wagner’s, soon after I moved
home to Cincinnati in 2019—
and prompted, I’ll admit, by
that Times piece—I ended up
waiting about 40 minutes for
my chicken, sizzling in a cast-
iron skillet while I dipped
crackers in my slaw, per local
tradition. “You could have
called ahead and told us you
were coming,” former owner
Ginger Saccomando said at
the time.
The last time I went to
Wagner’s, after the James
Beard nod, the stovetop was
crowded with working skil-
lets, constantly sending
chicken out to the
dining room,
and the
menu had been replaced—
temporarily, I was told—by
a single sheet with limited
options. “We’re still getting
back on our feet, with all the
attention,” our server told us.
Fortunately, the fried chicken
cooks hadn’t lost their step.
In the last few years, I’ve
gotten into the habit of cele-
brating special occasions with
Wagner’s takeout. Oldenburg
is about 45 minutes from
downtown Cincinnati. It’s far
enough that the drive feels
like a ritual, but not so far that
I can’t go after work. Even if
the chicken weren’t some of
the best in the country—now
identified as such by two New
York–based tastemakers—
I’d get a kick out of bringing
a taste of small-town Indiana
home to friends and family.
And while I was think-
ing through this piece in
April and May, I went back
to a few of the other popular
fried chicken joints in the
area. Three times, I left work
around 6 p.m., drove across
newly planted farm fields,
tracts of suburban sprawl, and
one charming covered bridge,
and spent my nights in wood-
paneled dining rooms that
felt like they could as easily
have been in the Dakotas or
the Delta as in Greater Cin-
cinnati. Even when the chick-
en wasn’t quite New York
Times–worthy, I was getting
an experience that I couldn’t
get from my favorite places
in Cincinnati—or, for that
matter, from KFC. And every
time, I was home by 10.
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