I can verify that Western Michigan is one of the most wonderful places in the world to visit, and from what I’ve heard it’s also a great place to live. Grand Rapids in particular seems to be a bumping town, featuring more great breweries than they know what to do with, one of my favorite coffee shops, and a great selection of other niceties that appeal to people nervous about self-identifying as a hipster like myself. Every time I go to Grand Rapids, I’m taken somewhere new and exciting by my brother-in-law (John) and his wife (Lauren), and for that I thank them.

Last Sunday, after 3 late nights of heavy Euchre and drinking while staying with my wife’s parents in Holland, we came to stay for a night in Grand Rapids before our early flight on Monday Morning. (Did you know Southwest flies non-stop from Grand Rapids to St. Louis?) We found ourselves eating a somewhat late dinner at the Winchester and naturally I found myself attracted to the portion of the menu that said “Wings”. It was easy to find this portion of the menu, as it was the first thing on the page.

They weren’t just wings though. The menu description read as such, or at least it does online: Confit Chicken Wings: classic buffalo sauce • ground bacon • blue cheese dressing. This sounds a little fancy, so I asked John who claimed to be a somewhat regular here “Are those like three different wing preparations, or is that all one thing?” It is all one thing. Fortunately the bacon is on the wings, and the blue cheese is in a cup on the side.

So what’s going on with these things? As you can’t tell by the one terrible picture I took, there are three wings on this plate, but they are the whole wing, rather than a wing broken up into pieces. So, it’s a 6 wing order. Good for a snack, but not enough for a meal.
I supplemented my meal with some focaccia and homemade butter, which was delicious (but unlike the wings I reviewed yesterday, not free). I don’t know how much anything costs because I didn’t take any pictures of the menu, they don’t say online, and I didn’t pay for my own food.

Despite having it explained to me while I was eating them, I don’t really know what confit means. So I looked it up on the handy wikipedia. It turns out its like frying, but at a lower temperature, and if chicken confit is anything like goose/duck confit, it’s fried in its own fat. Neat trick, but I’m not sure what kind of flavor that adds beyond the standard frying method.

That said, these wings are tasty. The buffalo sauce was good. Nothing was too spicy. The bacon, which seemed gratuitous on paper, added a nice component to the dish, both in terms of crunch and flavor. The wings themselves seemed to be high-quality and unbreaded. There is something gratifying about pulling the full wings apart. I’m not going to say I like it more than pre-separated wings, but it is a nice change of pace.

Everything at The Winchester that I had seems to be pretty tasty, so I can’t say the wings are a must-have for everyone. But if I find myself there again, I’ll probably end up with an order of them + something else. They’ve also got a great selection of craft brews (local and otherwise), with a $3 Old Milwaukee on tap for those who want something cheap and flavorless. I had a Founders Breakfast stout, because why not.