When Kim Prince opened her restaurant at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw mall in December 2019, she brought a taste of Nashville-style hot chicken’s true lineage to Los Angeles. Her aunt is André Prince Jeffries, owner of Prince’s Hot Chicken in Nashville; their family began selling hot chicken to Music City customers in the 1940s. Come to Hotville to understand why this torturous pleasure became a national phenomenon.

When Kim Prince opened her restaurant at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw mall in December 2019, she brought us a taste of hot chicken’s true pedigree. Her aunt is André Prince Jeffries, owner of Prince’s Hot Chicken in Nashville; their family began selling hot chicken to Music City customers in the 1940s. The staff will plead with first-timers to order mild; with medium and certainly spicy you cross into the territory of tingling, maybe even an all-over prickling sensation, and sweats.

Hotville began as a pop-up in Chinatown in 2016 and has since expanded to a full fledged restaurant. The hot chicken is served in breast and leg quarters and as wings at the new restaurant with five heat levels.