Chef Joe Tripp’s Korean fried chicken restaurant finds a permanent home in Beaverdale
Krispy Korean fried chicken from an award-winning Des Moines chef finally lands a brick-and-mortar spot to call its own next spring.
Last April, the Rice Bowl permanently closed after 47 years after its matriarch Mee Jane Lee died. Now comes word thatJoe Tripp’s Basic Bird will find a permanent home in the space at 2607 Beaver Ave. in Beaverdale.
Tripp created Basic Bird during the pandemic to keep his small-plates restaurant Harbinger open. The fast-casual restaurant Basic Bird specializes in Korean chicken.
Who is Joe Tripp and what is Basic Bird?
Tripp said he plans to get things going after he takes his kitchen staff on a trip to Thailand next April.
Tripp, a five-time semifinalist for a James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef Midwest, owns Harbinger on Ingersoll Avenue and Little Brother in Windsor Heights. When restaurants closed for dine-in service to slow the spread of COVID-19 in March 2020, Tripp created the Korean fried chicken restaurant inside Harbinger.
Even before the pandemic, Tripp planned to open Basic Bird. But he quickly shifted his plans to double fry the chicken at Harbinger, adding a vat fryer and rearranging the kitchen to accommodate the new menu.
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Where can you get Basic Bird Korean fried chicken until the Beaverdale restaurant opens?
Customers can still pick up Basic Bird dishes inside Harbinger or for takeout on Sundays from 4 to 8 p.m.“This is our throwback to the Korean Fried Chicken that helped us through the pandemic. It was a fan favorite and while we look for a spot for it to live + grow on its own we will continue to feature it once a week,” Tripp said on the Harbinger website.
Harbinger will stay open even after Basic Bird debuts in 2023.
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What do Basic Bird meals come with?
Each meal comes with steamed rice and three banchan, which rotate. Diners can select a sauce: sweet honey butter, spicy Korean gochujang or the Double Dunk that blends both.
Tripp also offers a cauliflower version, as well as cheese corn, a crispy ramp kimchi mandu, bacon and kimchi fried rice and steamed buns among the dishes.
Tripp got his culinary start as the executive chef at Alba, the new American restaurant in the East Village, before he opened Harbinger in 2018 on Ingersoll Avenue. Both Alba and Harbinger are on the Des Moines Register's essential restaurant list that came out in September. Last winter, he converted R+C’s Diner, a short-lived joint project with Simon's owner Simon Goheen, to Little Brother with breakfast forward favorites on the menu.
More:One of the best restaurants in Des Moines is closing permanently this month
Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at sstapleton@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Harbinger’s owner opening Korean chicken restaurant in Beaverdale
