Have you seen the lines for the fried dry chicken wings at San Tung lately? Or the up-tick in walk-ins every other Monday for Thomas Keller’s buttermilk brined fried chicken at Ad Hoc in Yountville? How about the tech workers sitting on the sidewalk each day at 12:30 for lunch at Little Skillet, or the never-ending popularity for the fried chicken sandwich at Bakesale Betty in Oakland? Chef-designed burgers and “Neopolitan artisan pizza” are so 2012, way back when the Giants had only won two World Series. Today, fried chicken is soaking up its moment.

One of the newest and most important fried chicken dishes in the Bay Area is right next to the Menlo Park Caltrain station and happens to be from a chef who was named “Best Chef- California” at the James Beard Awards in 1993 — and even was a student and a friend of Mr. Beard himself back while cooking at a fabled Kansas City restaurant in the 1970’s.

The restaurant industry is a strange world full of peculiar twists and turns. That is why Bradley Ogden can be found on the Peninsula — he does live on there, too — cooking on the line some nights at Bradley’s Fine Diner, where he serves fish and chips and “Steak & Potato” with Julia Child’s creamy potato gratin recipe to guests aged five to eighty-five. Ogden’s Ive’s fried chicken ($29) is made with Petaluma-raised, free-range Rocky chicken’s thighs, wings and breasts. It's delightfully tender, with a lighter-than-normal crust free of grease and crumbs. Like a perfect tempura coating, it doesn’t shatter but gently dissolves in the mouth.

"Ive’s" refers to the old-fashioned fried chicken joint in Midland, Mich. that Ogden frequented during his youth. There is no escaping that the fried chicken is priced for Sand Hill Road venture capitalists, though. (Just to give a comparison, the recently opened Trestle in San Francisco offers similar spruced-up diner classics, and for just $6 more than this fried chicken diners can have a full three-course prix fixe meal). 

As special as the fried chicken itself is, the supporting cast lets it down. Unfortunately, the mashed potatoes are a flat, soupy embarrassment that have far more in common with white gravy than pureed spuds. Some harmless cole slaw and a biscuit with honey butter round out the compartmentalized presentation, à la a classic meat-and-three.

This fine diner concept doesn’t come totally out of left field for Ogden, who had been doing elevated comfort food long before the fad sprung up after the recession. After serving as executive chef for Campton Place when it shared the limelight with Stars as being San Francisco's "It" restaurant in the '80s, Ogden founded the Lark Creek Group in 1989, then went on to Vegas to create a burger that GQ’s Alan Richman named the best burger in America in 2009.

Bradley’s Fine Diner is only a small step below this ambitious cooking vision, only with a train station outside instead of a Celine Dion concert. In Vegas Ogden actually was one of the very select few big name chefs on the Strip who actually lived in the desert and cooked at his restaurant. He deserves applause for avoiding over-expansion, and the celebrity trap that Chris Cosentino spoke so eloquently about last year.

BFD’s olive tapenade-topped hummus features green garlic from Ogden’s home garden, and while delicious, is a bowl of hummus worth $11 (and extra flatbread is $5 to boot)? Moreover, the cocktails won’t exactly resemble Trick Dogs and Bar Agricoles of the world. The space looks like a plantation-style golf clubhouse on Kauai on the outside and a spacious suburban furniture showroom with plaid booths on the inside. A chandelier is made of dining silverware, and one wall boasts a twinkling sign spelling out “FINE.” I haven’t looked, but I’m guessing the Yelp elitists have some sly comments. For the record, the restaurant’s motto also is “Bountiful, Friendly, Delicious.”

Luckily, Ogden’s butterscotch pudding from his Lark Creek days ($6) resurfaces here. It’s too bad the whipped cream pile impedes access to the main attraction, but a little digging yields one of the more consistently satisfying Bay Area desserts. Go crazy dipping the oatmeal cookie in the pudding, a most enjoyable way to cap an evening. All in all, Ogden's career is such a fascinating story and the mighty fine fried chicken make Bradley’s Fine Diner a big…deal.

Bradley's Fine Diner, 1165 Merrill St., Menlo Park, 650-494-4342.