The Chicken or The Bottle of Burgundy
5/01/2026
by Nikita Malhotra
The chicken discourse has taken over New York; countless articles and social media posts continue to add more texture and conversation, so much so that I feel compelled to add my voice to the fray. To start, for those not initiated with this contentious topic, we can pinpoint the origin to the opening of Gigi’s, a restaurant in Greenpoint, where a half chicken for $40 sparked the intense discourse on inflation, restaurant economics, and cost of quality. So now the question has arrived, how much should a rotisserie chicken cost? As someone in the wine world, I have the privilege of being in a space defined as a luxury good, although a lot of my job entails breaking the barrier so that we can talk about wine as an agricultural and historical item. But chicken is an everyman staple, and Brooklyn, as gentrified as she looks these days, is not afforded the same prices as Manhattan.
Why do I want to even enter this debate? The last time I lived in Brooklyn I was in my early twenties. I lived off the Wilson stop on the L and the most expensive bottle in my apartment was a bottle of Sylvie Esmonin Clos Saint-Jacques. I am now happy to live on the island I was born on, Manhattan, but I do venture out to the neighboring borough for a good dinner and drinks with friends. I balk at the strollers that barely fit on the sidewalks of Williamsburg, remembering my high school days where we only stayed on Bedford, shuffling between the vegan cafe by the L train, the Salvation Army and Beacon’s Closet. Now I might walk over to Four Horsemen, and if I get a chance to walk in, I would probably spend more money there than back in Manhattan. Just because I remember the neighborhood and can recall the dive bars and seedy characters doesn’t mean I expect pricing and the environment to stay the same. Just because I used to sell Roumier Chambolle-Musigny at $300 ten years ago doesn’t mean I expect those prices to stay the same. Again, I ask, how much should a rotisserie chicken cost?
As I approach the midpoint of this year, the best dishes I have had, ironically, have been chicken dishes. I just witnessed historic auction prices the week of La Paulée with Acker’s sale of the iconic 1945 DRC Romanée Conti at $812,500! I don’t berate the person drinking Grand Cru Burgundy and just because there is also great Bourgogne Rouge, doesn’t mean that is what should define the narrative. The most expensive chicken dish I had this year was also the best, on a chilly January Saturday in Paris, I walked over to L'Ambroisie to meet my friend Michael who is a cook and my boss Daniel Johnnes. What followed was a memorable lunch, with the highlight being the chicken dish, Poulet de Bresse, finished with with black truffles under the skin, and separated in two courses.
“$40 half chicken at a wine bar? Really?” wrote New York City Councilman Chi Ossé on an Instagram post, calling out Gigi’s, which is not even located in his district. I think Councilman Ossé would have been horrified by the prices of the wine I selected when I went to Gigi’s, but I think a wine collector would have been delighted. I choose a bottle of 1994 Domaine Labet Cotes du Jura 'Fleur de Marne' Le Montceau that was $444, and it’s hard to price unicorn bottles such as this one. I had never had a Labet made by Alain, and I savored every drop. His son Julien took over in 1997, after a stint at Ramonet, and is now joined by his other two siblings. Alain’s wine was more lactic than Julien’s style, but after a couple of hours the wine became more focused, the acidity found its space and everything was well integrated.I know Gigi’s serves chicken, I know the chicken is $40, and I know for some that seems outrageous. But what about that bottle of Labet? Where else am I going to find bottles like this? Why isn’t that in the narrative surrounding the chicken discourse. Gigi’s isn’t just a rotisserie chicken place!
An Iconic Bottle at Gigi’s
Another piece that hasn’t been explored within the chicken discourse and that is specific to Gigi’s is that the price includes service; you do not need to add additional gratuity. Gigi’s has their whole team on salary. But many have mapped out how much chicken dishes cost across New York City, and that has been quite interesting. A restaurant I admire recently took off their popular rotisserie chicken dish because it was coming in as one of the more expensive on comparative lists. Here are some links to other stories about the discourse from Vinepair where Eliza Dumais wrote a very thoughtful piece to Luke Fortney’s piece in the New York Times which came out at the beginning of the whole debate.
I will of course see correlations between issues of pricing between food items like chicken and the current state of wine. I think it is an interesting perspective, and I think it is important to both question and then understand why certain things are priced in a way. It is important to understand costs and time and energy that go into both wine and something like rotisserie chicken, and I guess my take is that there should be a space for a diversity of price points and spaces to enjoy these things.
