Where are all these chicken wing competitions? Almost every restaurant I’ve been to that has chicken wings as a prominent portion of their menu claims they are award winning chicken wings. But I never see any trophies, medals, plaques, or anything that indicates what award they’ve won for their chicken wings.
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There are no formal requirements. That’s why everyone can have them.
They can just hold their own contest between family and friends give themselves the award and call it award winning.
Probably a good chunck are friends of the owner saying they it’s the best wings they ate.
That’s an award if you want it to be.
There are [competitions](https://buffalowing.com/amateur-cook-offs/) like this one, and restaurants/cooks will win.
There’s stuff like that for winga/ribs/chili/BBQ…etc.
They also have cook-offs at things like state fairs and local festivals.
Just do a Google search for
chicken wing cook-off
And you’ll find links to plenty of them.
This is often a form of “puffery” which is a legal term for exaggeration in advertisement. You can say you have “the best wings in Denver” because it’s a statement of opinion. You didn’t poll the entirety of Denver and come up with that determination. You’re just “puffing” up your products. Puffery is not false advertising because it’s not a quantifiable claim. “The strongest ladder money can buy” may not be specifically true but is legal to say. “Our ladder can support 450 pounds” would be false advertising if it’s false because it’s a quantifiable claim that can sway a purchase. So even if the wings didn’t literally win an award, it’s not illegal to call them award winning.
Could be from a local publication’s “best of” list, a local food fest, a specific wing competition, highest volume of wing sales, or any sort of other way they could claim “best.”
They use a really cool trick, called “making up your own award, then giving it to your self”
Nothing stops anyone from doing this, so lots of people do it.
Sometimes you mention an external award like “product of the year” but that doesnt always mean what it sounds like, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wa9SpmLJUE
There are a few kinds of awards.
1) Food festivals. Most major population areas have food festivals, sometimes themed like ALL chicken wings, or cupcakes etc. Sometimes broader like “A taste of (area)”. At these festivals, awards are often given by the organizers. Sometimes there’s a panel of judges.
2) Publications. Again, in most population areas, a magazine or newspaper will often have a yearly “Best of the (area)” issue inviting readers to vote on things like best bar, best arts experience, and yes, best chicken wings.
3) There are a bunch of predatory vanity companies that contact pretty much every business they can and tell them they won an award for the purpose of selling them the commemorative plaque at a high markup. These are fake.
4) There are are some food and drink awards from organizations that specialize in supporting or celebrating restaurants, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_food_and_drink_awards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_food_and_drink_awards)
There does not appear to be one on this list that celebrates wings specifically. But I wouldn’t be surprised if one existed that simply didn’t have the scale or gravitas to make this list. And I suppose if you got a Micheline star for your wing restaurant, you would be justified in calling them award winning.
[https://www.cindergrill.com/blogs/recipes/white-oak-pastures-chicken-wings-by-michelin-star-chef-critchley](https://www.cindergrill.com/blogs/recipes/white-oak-pastures-chicken-wings-by-michelin-star-chef-critchley)
[https://www.insidehook.com/san-francisco/michelin-starred-san-francisco-restaurant-chicken-wings](https://www.insidehook.com/san-francisco/michelin-starred-san-francisco-restaurant-chicken-wings)
There isn’t really a governing body for food awards; *except* for like, Michelin Star restaurants, which *do* tend to be more expensive, better service, and higher quality food.
When it’s down to chicken wings? Yeah no one cares; and for all we know, Billy Bob the owner took his *recipe* to a state fair and won first place 10+ years ago, but advertises it as “best wings in the state” kind of thing.
I phrased that very specifically; it might *have been* the best wings *recipe* 10+ years ago. But who knows how well the employees stick to that recipe *now*.
All it ends up being is an empty boast, to anyone with a modest amount of skepticism; as above, there isn’t really any big governing body for “best wings/burger/ribs/etc” – and you’re only hoping that their boast is off of winning some county/state competition. *PLENTY* of places have a town/county chili cook off – you can imagine the same for chicken wings, or burgers, or whatever. BUT, whether it’s actually “THE BEST”, is going to always remain subjective to whoever is eating it.
I can think of *dozens* of places I’ve been to, that advertised the “best (food) in the county/state”, but they were pretty average, compared to my hometown, where they know me, that I prefer.
;;
As a complete tangent;
There’s a burger joint in town that does melted cheese in the middle of the burger patty.
I love it, it’s tasty, they have a lot of options, excellent loaded curly fries, and beer on tap.
But the burger itself? I can *entirely* see why some people wouldn’t be into it – they have to cook the burger well done to get the cheese inside properly melted. And not everyone wants their burger well done.
So even though I might give that particular restaurant a 5/5; I can understand why some folks might rate it’s *burgers* only a 1 or 2 out of 5; cuz they wanted rare/medium rare, and that just isn’t possible with the cheese in the patty.
Same way my dad has a “world’s greatest dad” shirt. There’s no oversight to these awards and who gets them and even if there’s any competition actually held to receive them. It’s like the Wild West out here honestly and I think you could be on to something if we try to crackdown on these frivolous wing awards
Well, from my travels and tasting them from all over the country… first requirement is that they are located in Upstate NY…. Or the cook is from here.
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