Just open: Belle's Hot Chicken, Fitzroy

Former Loam chef Aaron Turner and Kiwi Morgan McGlone have buddied up on Belle's Hot Chicken, which opened in Fitzroy last Friday. They're serving juicy spiced chicken in a crunchy coating, after falling for the local speciality of Nashville.

Choose your meat (wings, tenders, dark meat - plus hot fish or field mushrooms), choose your heat (spicing ranges from mild to ''really f---ing hot'') and choose your side (crinkle-cut fries, mac and cheese, mixed pickles). Soothe the mouth afterwards with house-made soft-serve ice-cream.

''We're trying to meet expectations on every level and are using the best ingredients that we can find,'' says McGlone, the former chef de cuisine at fine-diner Husk Nashville. ''Just because we're doing hot chicken doesn't mean that we're not approaching it as if we're running a fine-dining restaurant.''

To drink, there's Cooper's Pale Ale and Kronenbourg on tap, tinnies of Melbourne Bitter or Pabst Blue Ribbon from Los Angeles, carafes of Patrick Sullivan's Love Juice pinot noir and an array of bourbons. Veda Gilbert

Belle's Hot Chicken, 150 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, 03 9077 078.
Open Monday and Wednesday to Thursday noon-10pm; Friday noon-11pm; Saturday 11am-11pm and Sunday 11am-5pm.