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Street Food : Kebabs & falafels

Eat the street !

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Who can honestly claim never to have wandered the city streets in the wee hours that come between clubbing and bedtime, in search of a juicy kebab to restore some sobriety? And how many of those searches have ended with a genuinely tasty meal? If you're fed up with the sub-standard meat shavings offered by the majority of kebab and falafel joints, read on for our guide to the city's superior establishments...
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Restaurants
  • Global
  • Strasbourg-Saint-Denis
  • price 1 of 4
  • Recommended
Fashionable Paris has swooned for burger vans, hot dogs and tacos, but perhaps the best of the street food was always here; in a Kurdish sandwich shop.Hidden away in the heart of Strasbourg Saint-Denis, Urfa Dürüm is a tiny wood-panelled venue where you are greeted at the entrance by the owner, flour and rolling pin in hand, busily preparing the flatbread dough. Further inside, meat grills in the stone oven. On the chalkboard menu, there are two choices of house speciality: Lahmacun or Dürüm. Lahmacun is a small wrap prepared like a pizza with minced meat, tomatoes and onions, and rolled up with salad...
Grillé
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • Restaurants
  • Opéra
  • Recommended
Burgers, hot dogs and fish ’n’ chips have all had the gourmet treatment in Paris, and now it’s the turn of the humble kebab. Grillé has vowed to turn these greasy late-night embarrassments into something healthy and full of flavour. The décor matches the intent, with a studiedly simple blue and white ceramic look under plain neon lights. Opened on the corner of the Rue Sainte-Anne and the Rue Saint-Augustin and run by three well-known names (Marie Carcassonne, famous butcher Hugo Desnoyer and Frédéric Peneau of Chateaubriand), it draws the crowds – we had to wait 40 minutes...
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Chez Hanna
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Restaurants
  • Jewish
  • Le Marais
  • price 1 of 4
  • Recommended
By noon on a Sunday there is a queue outside every falafel shop along rue des Rosiers. The long-established L'As du Fallafel, a little further up the street, still reigns supreme, whereas Hanna remains something of a locals' secret, quietly serving up falafel and shawarma sandwiches to rival any in the world. A pitta sandwich bursting with crunchy chickpea-and-herb balls, tahini sauce and vegetables costs €4 if you order from the takeaway window, €8 if you sit at one of the tables in the buzzy dining room overlooking the street. Either way, you really can't lose. This restaurant serves one of Time Out's 50 best dishes in Paris...
Istanbul
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • Restaurants
  • Fast food outlets
  • Batignolles
  • price 1 of 4
  • Recommended
The best doner kebab in Paris? Perhaps not, but if the lunchtime queue outside this tiny dive on the Rue Batignolles if anything to go by, Istanbul is a strong candidate at least. The secret is the care that the two brothers who run it take over the preparation of the meat – no worrying unidentified matter in these kebabs. The beef is deboned and sliced anew each day, then marinated for several hours in a secret spice mix inherited from their grandfather, himself a restaurateur in Turkey. The rest of the preparation is standard, but the result is exceptional. For €5 you can get your hands on one of...
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Daily Syrien
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • Restaurants
  • Syrian
  • Strasbourg-Saint-Denis
  • price 1 of 4
  • Recommended
Don't be put off by the newspapers in the window – this unassuming restaurant-cum-newagent, in the middle of the hip rue Faubourg Saint-Denis, has a class all of its own. The Middle Eastern menu is cooked by Ahmad, who grew up in Nawa in southern Syria and emigrated to Stockholm before coming to Paris with the idea of sharing the cooking of his homeland: hummus, salad, pickles, kibbeh ras (ground beef with pine nuts), falafel, labneh (strained yoghurt) with olive oil, mtabbal (aubergine dip), tabbouleh and more. A falafel sandwich ‘extra’ is put together as you watch: €5 for falafel, hummus, grilled aubergine, cauliflower and chips...
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