“Home of the Best Wings in St. Louis” is the bold claim you’ll be presented with when you visit Syberg’s website. How do they back this claim up? They’ve won People’s Choice awards both in Buffalo, NY and at the venerable Wing Ding in St. Louis, MO. Some pretty legit credentials. They’re also the favorite wings of several of my friends.
What I’m trying to say is that people – lots of people – really like Syberg’s wings. Some of my friends who have been eating them since their youth are borderline obsessed with them. As one said to me last night, “After being raised on Syberg’s wings, I think all other wings are terrible.” Even taken as hyperbole, this is a pretty extreme stance. This lukewarm review will be blasphemous to anyone with a similar mindset.
When people refer to Syberg’s wings, they are likely referring to the “Syberg’s Original Sauce” variety. (Also offered on the menu: Buffalo Brown Sugar, Buffalo, Suicide, Tay’s Teriyaki, Trashed, Frank’s Sweet Chili, and BBQ. Lots of options.) The first word that people that most people would use to describe how this sauce tastes is “mustardy”. It’s thick, creamy, a very little bit spicy and definitely has a mustardy aspect to it.
I do think this sauce is delicious though, even though I’m very suspicious that it contains a more-than-healthy amount of mayonnaise. This very popular sauce is sold online, so I thought I’d be able to find a list of actual ingredients, but after about 15 minutes of searching, I’ve given up. However, by my estimation, the appeal of the sauce deteriorates as you stuff more and more wings into your face. It’s too rich, too creamy and doesn’t have enough kick for me to enjoy a full order of them.
What about the chicken itself? For my order last night, it were a bit on the overcooked side. The wings themselves were large, but not offensively large, the chicken was dry and the skin was a bit chewy. The dryness of the wings was easily overcome by the fact that they are served doused in a very generous helping of the sauce.
Whether I like it or not, Syberg’s (5 locations, and also Helen Fitzgerald’s, a Syberg’s Eating and Drinking Restaurant) is a St. Louis wing institution. And if you want wings, you could certainly do worse. These are absolutely better than average-bar chicken wings, and they’ve got a lot of sauces to choose from if mustard isn’t your thing.
But not by a long shot are these the best wings in St. Louis, by this reviewer’s estimation. They aren’t even in the top 10. I dined with a couple out-of-town friends, and neither of them were particularly impressed. If you want great spicy-mustard wings, I’d recommend Schottzie’s. (But then again, I always recommend Shottzie’s.) If you want to read someone say some really nasty things, that I don’t agree with necessarily, about these wings, check out this Off the Eaten Path STL article I dug up while trying to find the ingredients to the sauce.
Hi! I received notification that my website was mentioned somewhere, and it brought me here.
First off, I just want to say that I like your site! I browsed around a bit, and I think it’s neat.
But anyway…about my review. I may have been a little harsh in my review of Syberg’s — since then I’ve actually had wings that were worse — and I’ve sort of grown out of using that sort of hyperbole in my writing (mostly!), but yeah…I wasn’t a fan.
Anyway, thanks for the mention, and good luck to you and your blog! 🙂
Thanks for checking out the site, Stephanie! I need to try some of your other favorites. I was just at the Shaved Duck and agree that those wings were incredible, but want to see what Southtown Pub has to offer! I’ve heard good things from others as well.
You nailed it with the over-the-top richness. I love the first 1 or 2 of these, but after that it feels like a chore to eat them.
Yeah. I’ve only had Syberg’s wings 5 or 6 times, and even when they are cooked perfectly, which does happen sometimes, the sauce is still too much by the middle of the order.
The recipe is Durkee’s Famous Sauce, Franks Red Hot and Butter.
You were dead on about the mayonnaise, as the Durkee’s contains that.
Good palate.
You’re welcome.
Also, I need to add that I’ve seen a quick decline in the quality of their wings over the recent year or so.
While you noted that the wings are big, I consider them really big…I usually don’t eat all of the meat because they are so fat.
However, the sauce and quality of the cooking seems to have become somewhat unstable.
I usually have mine at the Gravois location and have noticed that sometimes the wings are so grissly (is that a word?) that they are not even edible. I recently asked the waitress for two new wings because they looked and tasted as if they had been scraped off the bottom of the fryer.
On top of that, the sauce used to contain quite a bit of “zing”. Now they just taste “meh”.
I have always been a fan of Syberg’s sauce, hence the reason I took the time to figure out their recipe, however, it seems quality control has been an issue recently.
Pro tip: If you dine when the sauce is on top of its game, use their bread to scoop the leftover sauce off the bottom of the bowl…it is divine.
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