Bonjour RS world!
We leave tomorrow for a two week trip to France! Less than 30 hours to wheels up.
We're staying in le Marais while in Paris and hoping to experience the rotisserie chicken and potatoes roasted in the chicken drippings.
Two questions.
Is Sunday the best day to find this? We've seen some shows and articles making it sound like this dish is not readily available every day. We will be in Paris Thursday thru Wednesday.
Who makes the best version of this?
Merci!
It depends on where you go. I usually get mine at the Saturday market in Auteuil. There is nothing quite like this treat! I'm excited for you.
The Rue Mouffetard market in the 5th arr. This street market doesn’t get the tourists of Rue Cler. This is a 6 day neighborhood market (not Mondays) in which there is a butcher who has spits of whole chickens rotating over trays of diced potatoes roasting below in the drippings of the chicken. Heaven!
Haha, asking the real important questions. Don’t know about the best and this may be a bit seasonal, but on a winter visit the Latin Quarter was rife with restaurants cooking this open onto the street. Smelled incredible everywhere. It being fall you may have some luck. Be on the lookout for chicken from Bresse, a region with legendary yardbird. Similarly, restaurants specializing in cuisine from Auvergne would do this well.
The attraction to me of the Rue Mouffetard market street, on a nice day, is the proximity to the Luxembourg Gardens - pick up a chicken and fixings and head over to the Gardens for a picnic.
Keep in mind the Marais is a heavily Jewish neighborhood, so many places are likely to be closed Friday nights and Saturdays
One of the RS guides (who has her own travel sideline as well) has a great video showing this along the rue de Lévis in the 17th arr.
In the event that you decide to skip buying the meal from a market, there are few good restaurants that you may wish to consider. You could try this place: https://boucherie-restaurant-les-provinces.fr/restaurant/. It's a butcher shop with a restaurant in it. My friend who lives in Paris swears by it for poulet roti. I've never been. I have been to two of the places on this list: https://parisinsider-fr.com/nos-meilleures-adresses-ou-trouver-un-bon-poulet-roti-a-paris/. Those two are La Rôtisserie d'Argent and Le Coq Rico (Le Coq et Fils) and both were very good.
Thank you all for the suggestions! I feel like I could eat nothing but rotisserie chicken with potatoes during the next week in Paris and not be disappointed. But of course we'll try a couple other dishes too. :)
Now if it just isn't too rainy while we're over there! Although after the summer here I'm actually looking forward to some rain.
Thanks again!
Like the other "best" questions about ubiquitous foods, any local will tell you it is the nearest one. They certainly wouldn't travel any great distance to buy chicken and potatoes, although they might favour one of the local vendors over another. There's always roast chicken within 200 metres. In the Marais you can probably reduce that radius to 50 metres.
Same comment as Simon! I would just go to your nearest street market or butcher's shop (the latter will have rotisserie chickens on the sidewalk, you'll smell them before you can see them). They will sell chicken of different types: pick the highest-quality / most expensive ("Label Rouge" is a good quality seal) to avoid the worst factory-farmed birds.
Best rotisserie is probably a local butcher. Many sell roasted chickens slowly roasted you can take with you. There are a few good recommendations on here I agree with in terms of roasts. In my view the best food you can get in France is not all the modern stuff but traditional regional home cooking that has been perfected over years. I think some are missing on here but this has 3 of my favorites https://theparisshortlist.com/best-comfort-food-in-paris/
JHK and laffitejames-- thank you for the two excellent links. I just reserved for La Rotisserie d'Argent, not for chicken, but for their quenelles, or maybe oeufs en murette (poached eggs with a red burgundy wine sauce). Hard to decide. Hopefully my husband will order chicken, we'll share and we will take a doggie bag back to our aparthotel. Winning lists. Merci.
One of my favorite Paris memories is buying a roasted chicken dinner at a street stand around the corner from our apartment, just saw it walking home after a long day and decided to get one with potatoes and some veggies. Took it back to the apartment and had the most wonderful dinner. It is a meal we make sure to have when we visit, that and Steak Frites at Le Realais de l'Entrecote.
Like the other "best" questions about ubiquitous foods, any local will tell you it is the nearest one. They certainly wouldn't travel any great distance to buy chicken and potatoes, although they might favour one of the local vendors over another.
I endorse what Simon and Balso have said . . .
Definitely don't go out of your neighborhood to buy a chicken. Every food market in Paris has a vendor. We stayed near the Rue Poncelet in the 17th arr. and they had chicken roasting almost daily.
Bonjour from Paris!
Thanks for all the advice! The majority opinion of everyone has been correct. We grabbed some chicken and potatoes at the first little butcher shop we saw and it was delicious! And that was later the same day when it had cooled off a bit.
We head for the Louvre this morning.
