Our story
A Class 9 argument about whose chicken was better — the charcoal-grilled Al Faham or the fry. Twenty years later, this is how we settled it.
Class 9, Bangalore
One spent his early years in Kuwait, where charcoal-grilled chicken was a way of life: marinated for hours, cooked slowly over coals until the skin blistered and the smoke got into everything. When his family moved to Kerala, and later Bangalore, that was the flavour he missed most.
The other was born in Berlin and moved to Bangalore as a child. He grew up loving American-style fried chicken — crisp, golden, indulgent, impossible to stop at one piece. But what he really loved was the way his mother infused it with Mangalorean spices.
They met in ninth standard and stayed friends through school, engineering, and eventually two very different careers. One went into F&B, building and running two pubs in Bangalore before moving on. The other built a career in wealth management — numbers, structure, long-term thinking.
But one school-day argument never really went away: whose chicken was better — the charcoal-grilled Al Faham, or the fry?
Years later, at a school reunion potluck, they saw their chance to finally settle it. Both arrived with their own chicken, each quietly convinced this would be the dish that won the argument.
Their friends tried both and refused to choose. Instead, someone suggested the obvious: serve them together. They said they’d happily pay for it.
It was meant as a joke. Neither of them let it go.
That joke became USFC — Us Fried Chicken. “Us” for two old friends, two food memories, and chicken made for people here. Ours.
Not a compromise between two styles — two great kinds of chicken, each made properly.
The charcoal
Marinated for hours and grilled slowly over coals, shaped by a Kuwait childhood and done the Kerala way. Smoke you can taste in the skin.
See the Al FahamThe fry
Hand-dredged and fried to order, crisp and golden, carrying the punch of Mangalorean coastal spice. The way his mother made it.
See the bucketsNo mystery, no freezer.
Fresh chicken in every morning, brined on site. Nothing sits.
A drier coat with our own masala blend — the crunch comes from technique, not batter.
Nothing pre-fried and held under a lamp. You wait a few minutes; it’s worth it.
Cycled on a schedule, not when it looks bad. That’s why it doesn’t sit heavy.
Vine and Ember Hospitality
Us Fried Chicken is a Vine and Ember Hospitality brand, built in Bengaluru for Bengaluru. Same two friends, same two fires — we’d rather get one kitchen right than ten kitchens close enough.
Mon–Sun · 12:00–15:00 & 17:00–00:00
