fuzzbucket

You know what? Rotisserie chickens in Paris taste just like...chicken!!!

Seriously - unless you can get one smoking hot right off the rotisserie and eat it before it cools off, you will be eating basically the same thing you buy at the deli at Walmart (or whatever), but will pay a lot more for it.

The potatoes (and sometimes onions/peppers) are frozen, and just dumped in the drippings but they don't stay there long enough to make a difference. You can make a much better (and quick) version yourself, using fresh potatoes and other vegetables and either butter, oil or goose fat.

This is another urban Paris myth that is just so not worth all the hype.

By the way - the famous "chicken lady" at Bastille market retired two years ago, and the chickens aren't what they used to be.

traveller1959

>>> you will be eating basically the same thing you buy at the deli at Walmart (or whatever) <<<

Isn't it exactly what OP wants?

Christina

It's longer than 10 minutes from say the Bastille metro to even Abbesses metro, let alone a lot of the 18th which is quite large. And that doesn't even include any time walking to/from the metro to whether you are going or coming from, or any wait for the train. Even RATP estimates that trip as 12 minutes just in train time. From Rambuteau, they estimate train time as 17 minutes to Abbesses.

I don't think there's any need to micromanage simple purchases that much in Paris or plan them out in advance so much, where to buy every little thing.

Mathieu

I'm of this same idea too, that when perhaps a decade or more ago these rotisserie chickens in Paris were a hot novelty, I can now get such good rotisserie chickens here in my home town and eat them quite regularly, that the Paris chickens are now just a convenience for me if I need to eat something quickly, and that's OK.

I've seen those little potatoes being thrown in from a frozen bag (most are frozen anyway, and most of the time they are machine shaped, like so called baby carrots are) and I even suspect I was sick the last time I bought some from possibly lower temperatures and the juices that drip all over them.

I much prefer buying a raw bird, coating it with salt, pepper, butter and lemon juice, tossing the spent lemon halves and a sliced head of garlic in the cavity (with some green herbs) and slow roasting it in my vacation apartment with some potatoes in the pan while I get on with other stuff. Yes, costs more than 5 euros, but doesn't take much prep time and the aromas are incredible.

yestravel

Yup, I love chicken at home or away and had a hankering for one. I wouldn't shop at Walmart if you paid me, but yes, of course, we do have rotisserie chicken that are very good where I live. And yes, they are easy and good to cook myself. Not sure what that has to do with feeling like a chicken dinner while away and asking where best to get one. Always amazes me how fodor's topic go all over the place.
Thanks to those who provided helpful info.

fuzzbucket

The whole point is that the best rotisserie chicken is the one closest to where you're living. Very few places jazz them up with spices or even salt and pepper. Parisians like their food fairly plain. Take a walk down your street, see what looks good and buy it. You can't go wrong.

ssander

The Place Baudoyer market (Wed & Sat -- between R. de Rivoli and R. François Miron) has always had a stall that sells them (with those delicious roasted potatoes) unless something has changed since we were last in Paris in September.

ssander