Rød Pølse Hot Dog Co. Rød Pølse Hot Dog Co.

Copenhagen street food · Ludlow Street, NYC

Pølse

One sausage, done right. Danish red pølser with a real snap, a bun toasted on the iron, remoulade, raw and roasted onion, pickled cucumber ribbons. Ordered at the window, handed over in wax paper, eaten on the curb with a cold beer.

close-up of a danish hot dog with remoulade crispy fried onions and pickled cucumber in wax paper

Takeout window open late Friday and Saturday

RØD PØLSE · RISTET · REMOULADE · ICE COLD BEER · 

Four things
worth ordering

The board is short on purpose. Everything below comes off the same roller and the same bun iron, six days a week.

  1. 01

    Ristet Hotdog

    The standard. Red pølse, toasted bun, ketchup, Danish mustard, remoulade, raw white onion, crisp fried onion, three slices of pickled cucumber laid on top.

  2. 02

    Fransk Hotdog

    A hollow baguette speared hot off the spike, filled with dressing, sausage pushed in after. No fork, no mess, walks better than the ristet.

  3. 03

    Pølse Nøgen

    Naked sausage on a paper tray with a slice of rye and a stripe of mustard. This is what the Copenhagen regulars order when they want to taste the casing.

  4. 04

    Ice Cold Beer

    Danish pilsner kept at 34 degrees, plus a rotating New York lager on the shelf. Cans only. They go out the window with the dogs.

Greasy fingers,
no filter

Shot on the counter at 11pm. Nothing styled, nothing wiped off the paper.

hands holding a danish hot dog in wax paper on a city sidewalk at night
Curb service, 11pm
red danish sausages sizzling on a hot dog roller grill in a takeout window
The roller, all day
cold can of danish pilsner beer beading with condensation next to a hot dog
34 degrees, always

Order at the window. Pay at the window. Eat at the window.

Cash and card

Takeout only. Two stools by the door if you are lucky.

The rules

We cook it
the Danish way
or we don't
cook it.

The pølser are made to our spec by a smokehouse upstate: pork and veal, natural casing, dyed the red you see on every corner of Copenhagen. They sit on the roller until the skin tightens, then they go in a bun toasted with butter on a flat iron.

Remoulade is mixed here every morning, cucumber gets pickled in-house, the fried onion is fried in-house. That is the whole trick. There is no secret sauce and no twelve-item board. If you grew up buying these from a pølsevogn, this will taste like home. If you didn't, order the ristet and a beer and find out.

Run by two Danes and one guy from Queens who now argues about remoulade for a living.

Read the whole story

Get
a dog.

Call ahead and it will be wrapped and waiting, or walk up and watch it come off the roller. Either way it takes about four minutes.

The window

148 Ludlow Street, New York, NY 10002

hej@rodpolse.nyc

Hours

Mon–Thu 11am–10pm · Fri–Sat 11am–2am · Sun 12pm–8pm

Directions and subway