Le Coucou, the city’s finest new restaurant of the previous two many years, is the very last of our wonderful eateries to reopen after lockdown. I’m thrilled to report that the gracious temple to French delicacies is even far more magnifique than it was right before the pandemic struck in March of 2020.
The 80-seat eye- and palate-popper in just SoHo’s 11 Howard hotel started welcoming attendees back on Nov. 18 — later than Le Bernardin, Jean-Georges, Cafe Daniel, Marea, For each Se or Masa. There ended up great financial and staffing good reasons for the go-sluggish, and the wait was value it.
Le Coucou’s ethereal, brick-framed, romantically chandeliered dining home hasn’t adjusted an iota. White tablecloths even now adorn all tables. Even the amusing “Coucou” tune that plays ceaselessly in the bathrooms is precisely as it was when the place opened to acclaim in June 2016.
Services, from a crew in snappy gray satisfies, was always seamless and poised in the earlier. Now, it is by some means even far better, irrespective of the well-publicized labor shortage that is remaining quite a few restaurants providing the moon absent to entice second-rate help.
Servers and sommeliers are there when you will need them and hardly ever there when you really do not. There’s no childish blather about how the “bites” are dealing with us or if foie gras is to our “liking.” As a substitute, it is just clever conversation about dish preparing in grown-up English.
Born in Chicago, chef-partner Daniel Rose first took Paris by storm in 2006 with his restaurant Spring — a good results so troubling to Gallic sensitivities that the Michelin Guideline did not award it a one star. Michelin also snubbed Le Coucou for various a long time, but the relaxation of the planet understood improved. The James Beard Basis named it the best new cafe in The usa the yr it opened. Given that then, practically each and every critic has lavished praise on Rose’s gentle, loving update of the standard French playbook.
The menu offers 4 new dishes, although Rose hasn’t tossed out the first Le Coucou style. “It’s additional of a subtle adjustment,” he informed us. “There are a good deal of avenues to acquire with the French framework of foodstuff.”
He takes light-weight cues from the Iberian peninsula and the French Basque country for some new additions, such as thon a la portugaise (raw bigeye tuna with Madeira vinaigrette). But, he notes with a chuckle, that the dish “isn’t actually Portuguese at all.” It’s just delightful.
Bar noir a la setoise — black sea bass with “sea creatures,” such as shrimp, mussels and clams — is motivated, type of, by the city of Setoise in between Marseille and Barcelona. Did Rose find it there? “No, it is an plan of what persons could be eating in Setoise,” he discussed. The luscious preparing taps olive oil, olives, and herbs and is “more austere than in Italy or the Riviera in which the fish would be cooked with tomatoes.”
Rose has notably tweaked his filet basquaise — primary beef filet with foie gras and ham, which he serves with a miniature pie of chard and red pepper. He’s bid adieu to the buttery Bordelaise sauce that previously accompanied the dish. In its put is an herb-infused olive oil that lets the meat’s deep taste speak for itself.
Rose has wisely retained old favorites, such as a grilled Maine lobster and outstanding quenelle de brochet (pike dumpling) in thyme-prosperous sauce Americaine, on the menu. But why did we have to wait around so long?
Restaurateur Stephen Starr, whose empire incorporates Buddakan, Upland and Clocktower, stated that Le Coucou has extremely couple of seats for a location of its dimension. “The town very first permitted us to reopen in increments, 25%, then 50%. The math did not perform for us. We’d be losing money. So, we waited for complete capability.”
Even then, he waited until vaccine guidelines designed diners feel safer. But the staffing trouble remained acute. Le Coucou’s fine eating product calls for skilled gurus, not the unskilled enable some locations lured with $200 signing bonuses.
“Pardon my French, but a lot of individuals [bleeped] off” after the 2020 lockdowns, Rose joked. Only five of the kitchen area crew’s 26-person crew, such as chef de cuisine Justin Bogle, labored at the cafe just before the pandemic.
Acquiring sommeliers proved specially challenging. Le Coucou reopened with only beverage director Aaron Thorp and somm Marion Walker-Linsky to enable prospects navigate the 850-bottle list. (And to aid non-oligarchs locate numerous, below-$200 decisions amid a blur of pricier options.) “But we just hired two far more this week,” Starr reported with aid.
Does he dread any effects from the Omicron variant? “I be concerned about everything,” Starr reported cheerfully. “A new virus, new inflation — each and every time one thing good happens, a little something walks by and kicks you appropriate in the nuts.”
But demand is pretty potent. “We do not consider all the reservations folks want. We’re thorough not to overbook,” Starr said. “We’re opening our guide far more slowly but surely.”
Foodstuff lovers would be smart to consider and rating a reservation as before long as achievable.
138 Lafayette St. Meal seven times, no out of doors seating. Hors d’oeuvres, $18-$89 gourmandises (midsize dishes), $32-$60 primary dishes, $42-$110, LeCoucou.com
