Four white meats set cold in a lightly vinegared jelly and eaten straight from the pot with hot frites, which melt the jelly into a sauce as you go.
Where to eat it: 5 restaurants across 1 city.
The name is Flemish for little pot of meats, and the dish is recorded in Taillevent's Viandier of 1486 as already popular around Dunkerque. Westhoek farmers made it in winter, preserving good cuts with wine, vinegar and spice rather than salt or smoke, and ate it cold in the fields at harvest. Purists use rabbit, chicken and pork; a fourth camp adds veal. It reaches Lille from the coast and is now a fixture of every estaminet card on Rue de Gand.
Tip from the editors. Use pig's trotters instead of gelatine if you can get them. The set is softer and the flavour deeper.
Au Soyeux on Rue de Gand in Lille runs 44 covers of ch'ti cooking, potjevleesch and carbonade with maroilles croquettes and roasted bone marrow.
Signature: Potjevleesch, Croquettes au maroilles
Order: Potjevleesch, the jellied terrine of four white meats.
Tip: Only 24 seats indoors plus a 20-seat terrace, so book for a weekend evening.
La Petite Table has run on Rue de la Monnaie in Lille since 2003, a small estaminet doing carbonade, welsh and potjevleesch properly by hand.
Signature: Carbonade flamande, Potjevleesch
Order: Potjevleesch with the house frites.
Tip: Finish with the spéculoos mousse rather than the café gourmand.
L'Estaminet du Welsh on Rue de Gand in Lille runs a lunch menu at 12.90 euros and a plat du jour from 9.90, built around a dozen welsh variations.
Try: Welsh au maroilles
Tip: The plat du jour starts at 9.90 euros, which is the cheapest sit-down welsh in Vieux-Lille.
Au Georges V on Boulevard de la Liberté in Lille calls itself the temple of welsh, and runs a smoked version alongside potjevleesch and carbonade.
Signature: Welsh fumé, Potjevleesch
Order: The welsh fumé, made with a blend of classic and smoked cheddar.
Tip: A vegetarian welsh is on the card. The current owners took the place on in 2022.
Le Porthos on Rue de la Monnaie in Lille is a brick-walled estaminet cooking the regional card: carbonade, potjevleesch and welsh, served all day at weekends.
Signature: Carbonade flamande, Potjevleesch
Order: Carbonade flamande, with the house frites.
Tip: The kitchen runs 12:00 to 14:00 and 19:00 to 22:00 on weekdays, then straight through from 12:00 to 22:30 on Saturday and to 22:00 on Sunday.
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