COQODAQ
High-low fun at the notorious spot from Simon Kim.
Here they are, the words I never wanted to write: I had a great time at Coqodaq.
I had to try the Cote team’s Korean-fried-chicken-and-champagne hotspot for myself, and what better time for an indulgent night out than the weekend between Christmas and New Years? Three Jews and a bunch of fried food in December — it was basically a Chanukah celebration.
Complete with velvet rope, bouncer, and pounding bass, Coqodaq is the consummate clubstaurant — but it feels very 2024. I write this in 2024’s last hours; it’s now been around for almost a year. But that year was the year that the frivolous opulence Coqodaq stands for took over New York: the year of caviar on everything, the year quiet luxury got traded in for the “mob wife aesthetic,” the year everyone and their mother tried the NYC happy meal. Coqodaq is very much of its moment.
Despite the restaurant’s best efforts — it is the centerpiece of the menu — we did not opt for the “Bucket List” feast, preferring to exercise our free will a little more. Instead, we ordered a la carte pieces of chicken along with some appetizers and sides. And because we spent a pretty penny, the kitchen graciously sent out several of the extras that we would have received had we ordered the Bucket List — ginseng chicken consommé to start (intensely flavorful and the perfect remedy on a cold night), banchan (the cool pickled vegetables and alliums pair brilliantly with the hot, crispy, greasy fried chicken) and dessert (tart plain frozen yogurt with blueberry sauce). This generosity did not go unnoticed; if you’re going to spend fine dining prices on fried chicken, good service should be part of the deal.
We begun with the excellent tartare trio, with amberjack, trout, and tuna tartares each prepared in a different style and served with toasted sourdough points. It was hard to pick a favorite; all three finely cubed fishes were complemented by interesting flavors. The creamy horseradish and trout roe-spiked amberjack was prepared with a touch of yuja for a satisfyingly savory bite with an interesting twist; the trout was lightly marinated in soy sauce and covered in shaved black truffle, an umami dream; the tuna, while probably the least interesting of the three, was paired with Calabrian chili, an easy recipe for success.
The “24 karat” “Golden Nuggets” topped with caviar made for a good Instagram but a boring bite. While the addition of oily saltiness to oily saltiness sometimes yields heavenly products (see: the caviar hot dogs at The Bar Room at the Modern), here the result was totally lacking in flavor and interest. It tasted like a low-effort cash grab, because that’s exactly what it was. The chicken nuggets were boring and the caviar could not save them. There seemed to be a small amount of aioli used to stick the nuggets to the plate; I would have liked to see the addition of more of this, or of something else with flavor and not just fat and salt. Save your $28.
When more nuggets appeared (we ordered a few pieces of each kind of chicken), four interesting dipping sauces appeared too, and this was the nuggets’ saving grace; jun verde, cacio e pepe sauce, funky honey mustard, and gochujang BBQ sauce did more for the otherwise boring nuggets than caviar ever could. While the creamy, cilantro-forward jun verde was my favorite, I enjoyed all of them, and trying different permutations was a lot of fun.
Fun is what Coqodaq excels at. Playfulness is in the restaurant’s name, a portmanteau of the French and Korean words for chicken and a play on a Korean chicken sound. The experience is very much a choose-your-own-adventure, which I tend to enjoy. You can design your ideal meal by picking your chicken pieces, your glazes, your sauces, and your sides — especially if you order a la carte — and there are many interesting options. You can eat with your hands and feel like a kid, even as the caviar and Amex gold cards whizzing by on silver platters suggest otherwise.
Aside from the tartare, the meal’s other highlight was the glazed chicken pieces, which were infinitely more flavorful than the plain nuggets. The glazes — gochujang and soy garlic, one a bit spicy and one umami — were both excellent, and the glazed chicken pieces did not need any additional sauce to be flavorful and delightful (squirting gochujang BBQ sauce on a gochujang glazed chicken wing would be gilding the lily) but sometimes benefited from them (Parmesan pepper sauce can be a good contrast to spicy gochujang or a good pairing with soy garlic). My favorite bites were a gochujang thigh and a soy-garlic breast — but the beauty of Coqodaq is that you can have exactly the combination you want. And it’s sustainably sourced and gluten- and seed-oil-free to boot.
The side dishes were inconsistent. We all enjoyed the gooey, Velveeta-like mac and cheese with chili oil — it pleased the inner child — but one could certainly argue that it was bland. The cole slaw was classic and excellent: just the right amount of mayo, and not overly sweet. The spicy tteokbokki was bright and perfectly chewy and paired well with the chicken — but do be warned that it is fiery. The fries were forgettable.
The cocktails were creative and enjoyable, but expensive. A better bang for your buck is champagne, for which Coqodaq has a full sommelier team and a daunting iPad list boasting over 400 bottles of bubbly ranging from affordable to less so. We shared a nice (but not too nice) bottle, my fiancé enjoyed a glass of nonalcoholic sparkling wine, and I came away with a new appreciation for the way champagne cuts through the richness of fried food.
Coqodaq’s business model is evidently based around a manufactured air of exclusivity combined with high-low, crowd-pleasing (others might say pandering) food — not all that different from The Corner Store. But hey, that business model seems to be working for both of them. At Coqodaq, the tartares and fried chicken pieces are a delicious centerpiece to a fun, lavish night out.
Was it an amazing meal? No, but it was a great meal — and an amazing time.
TL;DR: WHAT WE ATE
Loved: gochujang- and soy garlic-glazed chicken thighs and breasts, amberjack tartare, trout tartare, cole slaw
Liked: tuna tartare, nuggets with sauces, mac and cheese, spicy tteokbokki
Should have skipped: caviar nuggets, fries
Pricing: $38 per person for the Bucket List feast; a la carte chicken from $3.50 a piece
Im fascinated by the year that caviar is having
Sounds yummy. On my way.