Roasted chestnuts: where to taste it at Christmas markets

Roasted chestnuts are chestnuts scored then roasted over embers in a perforated pan, sold piping hot in a paper cone, and their seller sets up at Christmas markets as well as near monuments and busy spots: the cone is eaten while walking, peeled as you go.

Roasted chestnuts, Maroni, caldarroste: the cone from one country to the next

In Vienna, the Maronibrater are part of the city’s winter: the trade descends from a privilege granted by Maria Theresa to itinerant sellers who came from Slovenia. Graz and Salzburg follow, and in Linz hot chestnuts are sold in the Volksgarten. In Germany, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart advertise roasted chestnuts, as do Bern, Zurich and Fribourg in Switzerland, and Prague, Warsaw and Deventer further afield.

In Milan, the Sant’Ambrogio fair, held around 7 December, sells firunatt, necklaces of roasted chestnuts threaded on a string. Arco, in northern Italy, offers roasted chestnuts, and Seville has its chestnuts on the stalls.

Where to eat roasted chestnuts at a Christmas market

In France, the cone is found from the south-west to the north: roasted chestnuts in Brive-la-Gaillarde, hot chestnuts in Rodez, roasted chestnuts in Le Puy-en-Velay, Angoulême, Orléans, Auxerre and Bourges, and on the Côte d’Azur in Cannes and Nice. Bordeaux, Beaune, Poitiers, Limoges and Le Havre have them too. In Corsica, Porto-Vecchio and Calvi serve roasted chestnuts.

For the difference between marron and châtaigne, how to choose the nuts and how to peel them, read our article Marrons Chauds: the Paper Cone of Roasted Chestnuts That Warms Every Christmas Market.