Bintje potatoes fried twice, the second time in beef fat, served in a paper cone with a fricadelle, the long skinless sausage of the northern friterie.
Where to eat it: 4 restaurants across 1 city.
The friterie is its own institution in the Nord, a wooden hut or a shopfront doing one thing properly. Frites are cut fresh, blanched at low heat and finished hot, traditionally in beef fat rather than oil, which is what gives them their flavour and their reputation. The fricadelle is the standard partner, a mixed-meat sausage with no skin, fried until dark. Sauces run to andalouse, samourai and, in Lille, a maroilles sauce that no other region attempts.
Common allergens: Gluten
Tip from the editors. The rest between the two fryings is not optional. Skip it and the frites go limp within a minute.
Friterie des Lilas on Rue Saint-Gabriel in Lille cuts its own potatoes and prices its student menus low enough that Wazemmes queues for them.
Try: Frites and fricadelle
Tip: Ask for the student menu if you have a card. Sunday is evening service only.
Friterie Meunier beside Lille Flandres station sells frites, croquettes and fricadelle from 11:00 to 22:30 daily, the cheapest fill near the trains.
Try: Frites and croquettes
Tip: It runs to 22:30 every day, so it covers the gap after most kitchens close.
La Friterie du Splendid on Place du Mont de Terre in Lille is a working baraque à frites, cheap plates of frites with sauces made on the premises.
Try: Frites with house sauce
Tip: Closed Monday, and both weekend days run an evening service only, from 18:30.
Bierbuik's brewpub on Rue Royale in Lille runs to 01:00 on Thursday and Friday and to 02:00 on Saturday, and the kitchen stops at 23:30 then.
Try: Frites sauce maroilles
Tip: On those three nights the bar outlasts the kitchen, so order food before 23:30.
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