Ontario's newest hot chicken restaurant is 'unhinged in the best way possible'
Ontario’s newest go-to fried chicken restaurant might also be its most unique, and its founder has been dreaming it up for the past eight years.
Fried chicken ā particularly that of the addictively spicy variety ā has been having a moment across the GTA for, well, years, which made two facts abundantly clear to Sal Hussain, owner of Mississauga’s Mad Bird Hot Chicken and Mad Ox BBQ.
Firstly, he had to take a stab at creating a hot chicken venture of his own. Secondly, it had to be unlike anything else you could already get in the city.
That was back in 2018. Mad Bird, the eventual spawn of these two ideas, wouldn’t open in Mississauga until June 2025, but, upon landing, it was clear that the concept was worth the wait.
While Nashville’s take on hot chicken tends to get all the glory (and rightfully so, since the Music City is generally credited with being the birthplace of the dish), Mad Bird puts an entirely different spin on it; one that reflects Mississauga’s own diversity.
“We always loved fried chicken, and we also understood that every culture loves fried chicken, right? But we just didn’t want to be another Nashville-style joint, which were everywhere at the time,” Hussain explains to Dished Toronto.
“But I’m like, ‘Okay, if those cultures had a hot chicken, what local flavours, spices would they use, right? And what would that turn out to be?’ And then that’s where we started to kind of get rolling.”
So, Hussain and his team got to work dreaming up different globally inspired renditions of hot chicken. After nearly three years of perfecting the base recipe for their chicken and another 18 months developing their different offerings, their core menu was born.
The restaurant officially opened its doors in early June of 2025 with five different sandwiches and seven wing flavours, representing countries from Canada all the way to Korea.
“We want to build a brand that felt alive, you know, something fun, fiery,” Hussain told Dished Toronto. “It’s a little unhinged in the best way possible.”
Hussain suggests, on a first visit, to start off with theirĀ OG BirdĀ orĀ OG Spicy BirdĀ sandwiches. These classic crispy chicken sandwiches were designed to display the spice blend and house-made batter that took the team so long to create, but if you want to see what the globally inspired fried chicken hubbub is all about, there’s plenty to try.
For a Korean flair, there’s theĀ Torched Seoul Sando, where a crispy thigh is drenched in a Buldak-inspired sauce and topped with cheese, kewpie mayo, white sesame and pickled jalapeno, or theĀ K-Town Hot Peanut Butter Wings, which use the same Buldak sauce with a gochujang-peanut butter drizzle.
“Peanut butter and fried chicken to me are the best combination on the planet,” Hussain told Dished Toronto. It’s for that reason that Mad Bird fries all of its chicken in peanut oil; a decision that, admittedly, excludes a chunk of potential customers but, in Hussain’s opinion, is non-negotiable for next-level fried chicken.
Other menu standouts include the South Asian-inspiredĀ Masala Stinger Sando,Ā Nashville Napalm Sando (available in five different spice levels), “buffalo heat meets boujee”Ā Truffalo WingsĀ and theĀ Northern Maple Heat Wings, an homage to none other than the True North, strong and spicy.
The current menu is far from the final product for Mad Bird, Hussain told Dished Toronto, as the restaurant gears up to launch new Szechuan and Japanese-inspired creations in the coming weeks.
Since opening, Hussain told Dished Toronto that the reception from the community (which just so happens to be the very community he was born and raised in) has been “unreal,” particularly from customers who have already come back time and time again.
While, particularly at new restaurants, best-sellers tend to emerge fairly quickly, Hussain told Dished Toronto that, in the case of Mad Bird, sales have been fairly equal across the board. Why? Because people are coming back to try something different on each visit.
In the absence of immediately viral items that have everyone flocking by (though we’d wager that Masala Stinger has a legitimate bid at taking the internet by storm), return customers sampling the entire menu is a good sign, indeed.
Though it’s still the early days for Mad Bird, Hussain told Dished Toronto that the sky is the limit for how he hopes to see the restaurant grow and expand in the future, including having a chicken-based dish on the menu for every culinary culture they possibly can.
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“As far as expansion, we did all this in hopes of conquering and bringing heat across, not only GTA, but wherever we can take it. […] So we want, we know, to have something for every culture, and to be inclusive as much as possible.”
With passion as the driving force behind the entire venture, Hussain says, anything is possible. We’re inclined to agree.
Until then, you can subject your taste buds to sweet, spicy agony at Mad Bird’s Queen Street South location in Mississauga.
Mad Bird Hot Chicken
Address:Ā 154 Queen St. S., Mississauga
Phone:Ā 647-347-9779
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