Two plates of wings, one table, one very clear verdict on how to spend an afternoon in Buffalo’s Allentown District: at Gabriel’s Gate, tucked into one of the original Tift Row houses built back in 1864.
The order came out as a split plate — classic hot on one side, a darker, glossier barbecue-style glaze on the other — with celery, carrots, and a couple of blue cheese cups riding along in a little wooden bowl. There’s something fitting about eating wings within walking distance of where the dish more or less started; the historical placard right on the table doesn’t let you forget it, either.
Allentown itself is worth the wander before or after — one of Buffalo’s oldest neighborhoods, all Victorian rowhouses and small bars a block off Delaware Avenue. Gabriel’s Gate leans into that history rather than around it: the building predates the wing itself by over a century.
The verdict: classic sauce for the purists, but the darker glaze was the one that got finished first.
Where This Was
Gabriel’s Gate, in Buffalo’s Allentown neighborhood.