Although Buffalo, NY is often regarded as the “home of chicken wings”, it’s often hard to pick which restaurant provides Buffalo’s best chicken wings. There are limitless options for wings in Buffalo, however, not everyone has the time to visit all the great options. Thus, through my personal experience and a survey of multiple Buffalonians, I have provided a ranked list and explanation of Buffalo’s best chicken wings.
Top Spots:
1) Elmo’s
Address: 2349 Millersport Hwy, Getzville, NY 14068
Elmo’s is a well-known fan favorite via my personal experience and my survey. Although they are a somewhat small restaurant & bar located in the suburbs of Buffalo, they provide the best wings in all of Buffalo. They excel at providing big, crispy, and flavorful wings which is essentially the trifecta for wing connoisseurs. Elmo’s provides the consumer with the option to “double-dip” their wings, which allows for a multitude of different flavor combinations. These unique flavor combinations combined with their big and crispy wings provide for the best chicken wing. My personal recommendation would be to double-dip Cajun wings with either hot sauce or honey mustard, depending on the level of spice desired.
“Best Cajun wings that allow you to double dip in any sauce you’d like. Puts a big ole smile on my face every time I walk in.”
-Surveyor
2) Amherst Ale House
Address: 55 Crosspoint Pkwy, Getzville, NY 14068
Amherst Ale House is another restaurant & bar located in the suburbs of Buffalo, and it’s actually just down the street from Elmo’s. Amherst Ale House is much bigger than Elmo’s as it focuses on providing a sports-themed experience along with a variety of other food options. Despite providing this variety of options, the Ale House excels in its famous grilled Crown Royal BBQ wings. These BBQ wings are the staple to their wing game, as they provide a crispy wing that is packed full of smokey BBQ flavor. If you couldn’t tell, the BBQ wings are my personal favorite as they also hit the big, crispy, and flavorful trifecta for a perfect wing. They also have many other flavors that are also extremely good, in case BBQ isn’t your thing, however, their wings are among the top in Buffalo.
3) Gabriel’s Gate
Address: 145 Allen St, Buffalo, NY 14201
Gabriel’s Gate is listed as the highest “pure” Buffalo wing spot as this place is essentially located in the heart of the city of Buffalo. Gabriel’s Gate is another small bar & restaurant that has the perfect trifecta in their wing game. From personal experience, they have some ginormous wings that they cook to a perfect crisp. I’m not sure how exactly they are able to maintain the crisp with the wing size, however, they have perfected it. With this said, there isn’t a unique style/flavor that differentiates them like the above two places. They do have a suicide sauce, however, that is quite common in Buffalo, NY, so I don’t acknowledge it as unique as “double-dip” or Crown Royal BBQ. Despite no signature style/flavor, they are still able to make one of the best overall chicken wings that taste delicious and crispy with any flavor you want.
4) Duff’s Famous Wings
Address: 3651 Sheridan Dr, Amherst, NY 14226
Is there a Buffalo chicken wing list without Duffs? Although not my personal favorite, Duff’s did draw a great review via my survey. They are an original restaurant in the wing game, and they may be the most well-known spot for people that aren’t from Buffalo. Although I believe that there are better places than Duff’s (listed above), I do believe that they excel at providing a great wing experience as well as providing so many different flavors. They are a restaurant that is essentially dedicated solely to chicken wings and it shows. They have a multitude of different spices where people can put their ability to withstand different levels of spiciness to the test. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend going to Duff’s as your number one spot, however, if you live in Buffalo, NY, or have enough time to visit more than one wing spot, I think visiting Duff’s is an essential experience.
“One of the originals and is very consistent!”
-Surveyor
5) Bar Bill
Address: 8326 Main St, Buffalo, NY 14221
Bar Bill is a restaurant & bar located in the suburbs of Buffalo. Unfortunately, I have no personal experience with Bar Bill, so the rundown of their wing game will be much shorter. However, through my survey, Bar Bill received a good enough score to earn a spot in the rankings. A couple of the surveyors listed this spot under “Best in Buffalo” while a few others had it listed under “Very good” on my survey. This leads me to believe that they provide an exceptional wing experience. Although I don’t have personal experience with this place yet, I will absolutely listen to my surveyors and make a journey out to Bar Bill sometime soon.
6) Anchor Bar
Address: 1047 Main St, Buffalo, NY 14209
Anchor Bar falls into the same category as Duffs in my opinion. Anchor Bar is the original founder of the chicken wing, which makes it an automatic mention on any list of wings. Similar to Duff’s, I don’t think Anchor Bar has the outright best wing, however, I think they have a great wing along with a great experience. They are probably the most-known wing spot to outsiders due to their founding of chicken wings. Again, I think that it’s a must-stop journey for outsiders to visit the place that found chicken wings, however, I would make sure you are able to stop at one of the top three places first before coming to Anchor Bar for the experience.
Honorable Mentions:
These next three places are listed as honorable mentions vastly due to the lack of experience by myself and the surveyors. From word of mouth, I have heard extremely great reviews of all these places, however, there was not enough information provided to me to rank any of these spots. With this said, I do think that any three of these places have the ability to jump into the top three from all the things I’ve heard about them. Similar to Bar Bill, I will have to visit and try the wings at these spots in the near time future so I can give them a much more definitive ranking.
Nine-Eleven Tavern
Address: 11 Bloomfield Ave, Buffalo, NY 14220
Doc Sullivan’s
Address: 474 Abbott Rd, Buffalo, NY 14220
Wingnutz
Address: Inside the Knights of Columbus, 1530 Kenmore Ave, Buffalo, NY 14216
Other Option:
If you are unable to travel to any of the listed restaurants to experience Buffalo’s best chicken wings, the YouTube video below is a step-by-step guide on the best way to cook chicken wings. The recipe and technique were formulated by a multitude of Buffalonians, which allows you to have some of the best Buffalo wings in your own home!
