Paris roast chicken recommendations please

Le Coq Rico is my suggestion. Supposedly, L'Ami Louis is a classic but I have never had it. But if roast chicken has eluded you, I suggest picking one up at Marche Aligre instead of going to a restaurant.

Nossa in the 5th...you won't regret it...cheers!

If you choose Marche d' Aligre, don't miss the world's best chocolate chip cookies at the little patisserie just inside the building. Yum!

Cafe Constant neat Eiffel Tower & rue Cler. 20-30 Euros. Open at lunch too. If going for dinner, arrive before 7, and have a drink at the bar informing them you want a table for ... they probably take reservations too. I have eaten there quite a few times and have had chicken. Great desserts too, a nice wine by the glass list.

If your budget gets really squeezed, the Costco is now open in Paris... :-)

With €4.99 chicken ?

Go for Sunday dinner at Drouant. Wonderful, and won't break the bank.

If you want Sunday roast chicken from an outdoor rotisserie, go to Bastille market or Auguste Blanqui, where there is an embarrassment of choices. You can buy half a chicken if you want to - prices range from 7.50 € to 15 €.
Be careful - some are sold by the kilo not by the pièce.
Personally, I think the potatoes are nasty - they're frozen and sit around in chicken grease all day.

We got the chicken out of the roaster from the shop between the Metro and the hotel we passed by every day and ate it back at the hotel and talk about it to this day. Didn't break the bank!

Yep - no need to advertise that you're carrying chicken - or any other food or drink - into your hotel room.
Just be considerate and take the carcass and whatever else remains outside to a bin on the sidewalk.
Even hotels that specifically state that you may not eat in your room will never know, if you take out your trash.

I'm intrigued, is this roast chicken the stuff that's cooked in a rotisserie for quite some time and can be bought at supermarkets and the like?

JC, it is cooked on a rotisserie in shops and markets and potatoes are placed underneath cooking in the drippings, yummy! Not sure about grocery stores. I have purchased from markets and food shops only. Last fall I made leek soup with the carcass, that was tasty.

Thanks June, just as I thought but I wondered whether the OP was looking for something different as those rotisserie chickens really are nothing special., cheap, tasteless chicken cooked to death.

The ones from quality traditional butcher shops and charcuteries that are done on the weekends are quite good.

We always go to La Rotisserie du Beaujolais at 19 quai de la Tournelle. We've been going there for years and are always happy to be back.
We went last summer and my 11 yo son loved the duck breast. I usually get the coq au vin, my daughter gets roasted chicken.
One of our waiters casually mentioned that their ducks are the same (the birds, not the pressed duck, of course) as the neighboring classic, La Tour d'Argent. Maybe I can now claim I've had La Tour's duck?

"...The ones from quality traditional butcher shops and charcuteries that are done on the weekends are quite good...."

They're no different. Not sure what difference the weekend makes. It's cheap chicken, cooked for so long the meat has almost turned to mush and the skin is flabby and greasy not crisp like a fresh roasted chicken should be.

Roast chicken is so simple to make and a decent free range, organic chicken will cost the same as one as those rotisseries ones but will taste so much better.

Indeed, there are different qualities of roast chicken being sold. The traditional shops offer them only on the weekends, as a treat. There is usually a choice between industrial or free-range, depending on budget.

In some neighborhoods where the people are poorer and shops aren't traditional, I did see many shops with sad, tiny little chickens like the ones we find at our local US supermarkets.

Chickens in France don't eat the same things as they do in other countries.
That's why the skin doesn't get "crispy" unless you know what to buy and how to prepare them at home.

"....Chickens in France don't eat the same things as they do in other countries.
That's why the skin doesn't get "crispy" unless you know what to buy and how to prepare them at home...."

I've never read anything so ridiculous!!! So what do chickens in France eat that they don't in any other country?

What does their diet have to do with whether the skin gets crispy or not?

Chicken skin is crispy when it is exposed to high, dry heat and is basted only occasionally. Rotisserie chicken is continually being basted in the juices as it constantly revolves therefore not allowing the skin to become crispy.

I can buy any chicken, from the cheapest battery hen to the most expensive free range, organic one and cook them all in my oven (or any oven for that matter including French ones!) and all with crispy skin. Nothing added other than a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

French chicken isn't any better than any other chicken!

I can vouch that the diets of chickens in France are somewhat similar to those in the U.S. The difference is the strain of bird and the method of production. In France, the "Label Rouge" is a slower growing, leaner bird that is also raised on pasture, although they are also fed conventional feed (cereal and legume-based; e.g., corn/wheat and soybean meal). In America, meat chickens are faster growing and typically not raised on pasture, with the exceptions being "free range" or organic. The amount of fat in the skin may be diet related, in that a fatter bird might have more fat in the skin, while the opposite would hold for a leaner chicken.

And also, while we are on the subject of roast chicken in Paris...in the late 1980s we ate at a restaurant in Paris that had copper pots and pans on the outside walls of the building. The roasted chicken was amazing (I think they used a lot of rosemary). Does anyone recall the name of that restaurant and if it still exists? It was the best roast chicken we have ever eaten.

The Carrefour City on rue de Rennes (used to be a Franprix) had roast chickens, with potatoes, right by the door. Smell was heavenly. Price was somewhere between 6-8€.

Robert - that was probably a chain called "Chez Clement" . Unfortunately it was sold to another company which is revamping everything.

@Chexbres: Thanks very much for that information. Too bad the restaurant has changed hands; it really was excellent.