Rotisseria

Hiding in the heart of Uptown, Rotisseria has some of the best takeout chicken in the state. To make it, Saleh Hamshari marinates his chickens, and roasts them on a rotisserie that circulates above a hardwood charcoal grill. When you order your chicken, it gets taken off the rotisserie, chopped up, and pressed under an iron plate on top of that hardwood charcoal fire. This results in a chicken that is both incredibly moist on the inside, and gilded with smoky black char on all the outside, the skin crisped to a baconlike state of magic outside. Rotisseria serves this bird with a tart, pale-green hot sauce, which perfectly picks out the sweetness and char of the chicken. The restaurant is based on the Peruvian model: In Peru, rotisserie-chicken restaurants inspire the same kind of mad competition and fierce devotion that you see in pizzerias in New York or fish and chips shops in Britain.