For those New Yorkers over 35 who enter Coqodaq early and text their party to apologize in advance (Too young! Too moneyboy! Too … chicken-fried Vegas!), hang in there.
Wash your hands at one of the stations in the entryway stocked with luxurious soaps—the Hermès Eau de Pamplemousse Rose pairs well with gochujang-glazed chicken wings—and get excited: you’re in for one of the most ridiculously fun nights you’ve had in ages.
On paper, a Flatiron restaurant described as a cathedral of fried chicken, caviar, and champagne sounds peak everything, and not in a good way. Opened by Simon Kim, whose Cote Korean Steakhouse has expanded to Miami and Singapore on a wave of Wagyu and white Burgundy, Coqodaq attracts a very 2024 intersection of Bitcoin bros, TikTokers, and under-30 Botoxed women in bustiers.
But tucked into David Rockwell–designed booths may also be food professionals such as me and my friends, surprised to be having the best time we’ve had in ages. Since the 2006 opening of Momofuku Ssäm Bar, the East Village restaurant that paved the way for this high-low bacchanal, to be precise.
The concept is simple: diners order the Bucket List, a $38-per-person prix fixe created by chef Seung Kyu Kim, who met Simon while they were working at Jean-Georges. That menu begins with a shot of chicken consommé with ginseng; then fried chicken in two courses—one straight, one flavored with a choice of gochujang or a sticky soy-garlic glaze—served with a caddy of sauces and small bowls of ban chan (spicy-cooling-fresh dishes to accompany the meal). Then, cold perilla-seed noodles are served, and the meal ends with a paper cup of frozen yogurt with seasonal fruit. (It’s a lot, but the menu assures diners that the chickens were happy, the frying oil is borderline healthy, and the rice-flour batter is gluten-free.)
You’re in for one of the most ridiculously fun nights you’ve had in ages.
Guests stick with the affordable set menu about as often as they order from the 100 bottles of champagne priced under $100. Champagne is excellent with fried chicken. Victoria James, Coqodaq’s executive director of beverage, explains that its sharp acidity refreshes the palate after each fatty bite, and nuanced layers of flavor from the aging process can stand up to chef Kim’s chicken. “It’s inarguable that it’s an amazing pairing,” she says, which is why she set out to build America’s biggest bubbly list for Coqodaq. She spent four years filling her 400-bottle book with rare vintages that can easily top $5,000. James and her team sell them with admirable swagger, confidently conducting the testosterone in the room. “Every table gets a bottle,” she says proudly.
The appetizers and sides are also strong. The city’s most Instagrammed dish is now Coqodaq’s Golden Nugget, a chef-engineered chicken nugget topped with either trout roe ($16 each) or Golden Daurenki caviar ($28 each). Guess which ones you see on almost every table.
While it does get lots of “likes,” it’s not the most delicious dish at Coqodaq: one does need that soy-garlic chicken! My friend, an elegant food entrepreneur, surprised us all when she sat down and announced that fried chicken is her favorite food in the world. “I cannot tell you how happy this makes me!” she said, clapping and squealing as the first silver bucket of chicken was cleared to make room for the flavored encores, served on cake stands to make the restaurant’s elevation of fried chicken literal.
While the mildly spiced gochujang bird was good, the soy-garlic had us figuring out how in the world we were going to get another reservation. (The bar has since opened to walk-ins.)
By the time I took a break to wash my hands, the restaurant’s sexy chaos had won me over. Everyone appeared to be genuinely enjoying themselves and letting their guard down, and it’s not just the thrill-ride factor of actually getting a table.
“Fried chicken is a great equalizer,” Kim told me when asked why the mix is working. “In a world where [everything’s] becoming more and more polarized, fried chicken is one of those things that can bring it all together.”
On our way out, we stopped by a table of well-respected food and wine professionals to give them the rest of our white Burgundy. These men have been immunized against restaurant gimmicks, and I was curious to see if Coqodaq was having the roller-coaster effect on them too. They greeted us grinning like fiends, their sticky hands exaggerating every word. It felt like we were in a club, having just ducked into the bathroom together to do a few lines of soy-garlic glaze, with a bump of caviar.
“It’s like being on the Titanic,” said my friend. “But it’s sinking at just the right speed.”
Christine Muhlke, a former editor at The New York Times and Bon Appétit, is a co-author of Wine Simple, with Le Bernardin’s Aldo Sohm, and a co-author of Phaidon’s Signature Dishes That Matter. She is also the founder of culinary consultancy Bureau X and the creator of the Xtine newsletter
