Coqodaq

How To Get In and What To Order

How to get in: From the same owners behind the extremely popular Korean steakhouse, Cote, comes Coqodaq, a Korean fried chicken restaurant. Their goal is to bring “better” fried chicken, meaning they use certified humane, hormone and antibiotic-free chickens that are raised free-range and use sustainably sourced, high quality ingredients such as their gluten-free rice flour batter. It opened just a couple of months ago and yet it is one of the hardest restaurants to get a reservation at in Manhattan. Reservations open up at 10am everyday, and even if you refresh your Resy page at 10am on the dot, you will likely only be able to book a 11pm reservation. I went with two other people on a Wednesday at 9:15pm through a Resy Notify. I have two recommendations when it comes to this restaurant if you don’t want to eat at 11pm – either you go 30 minutes before opening and wait in line (they save the bar and high tops for walk-ins), or you set a bunch of Resy notifies for any days you can go and wait for a cancellation. We lucked out and someone canceled the day that I happened to have a Resy Notify on!

Vibe and drinks: Known as the “Cathedral of Fried Chicken”, the inside of Coqodaq is truly astonishing. When you first walk in, there is a row of elegant sinks with lucious hand soaps (including Hermes) to get your hands all clean for digging into the fried chicken. As you walk to your table, there are rows of high half-arc lights in between the elegant booths. The restaurant is very dimly lit, the music is turned up and it just feels young with a party vibe, but at the same time upscale. It is definitely the fanciest fried chicken place I have ever been to. To drink we ordered the Alaska Martini, the Street Waffle and the Jubilee. The Alaska Martini was made with a mix of gin and vodka and had green chartreuse that gave it a bit of a sweet and unique flavor. I really liked how well balanced this drink was. The Jubilee was made with gin and oolong, giving it an herb-y and floral taste. This drink was also spirit forward but very smooth and I liked that they added a small flower for decoration. The Street Waffle was made with bourbon, aquavit and maple – making it a sweeter drink. The flavor of the drink was delicious, but for my personal taste, it was a bit too sweet.

Food: The whole reason to go here is for their famous Bucket List. This is a $38 prefix per person, which includes a consomme to start, two buckets of fried chicken – one plain and one with your choice of either a soy sauce garlic glaze or a gochujang glaze, pickled vegetables and four dipping sauces as accompaniments, cold perilla seed noodles as a side, and frozen yogurt to finish. For a place that is so upscale and hard to get into, I thought this was a great deal. They do have other things on the menu that are a lot more expensive, including a tin of caviar for $870, but the Bucket List is really a must here. 

To start off, we each ordered a Golden Nugget (this is not part of the Bucket List), which is one chicken nugget with creme fraiche and ocean trout roe. The presentation of these chicken nuggets was beautiful, however I was a little underwhelmed by the taste. The chicken nugget had a weird consistency and the caviar didn’t really add much flavor. In terms of flavor, I would skip this dish, but if you are looking for the novelty of a caviar chicken nugget, it is definitely a fun experience. 

Next we ordered the Bucket List and added a side of coleslaw and mac & cheese. First, we were brought a small cup of the Roasted Chicken Consomme with Korean red ginseng and chives. They told us this was to prepare our stomachs for the fried chicken. It was a warm and hearty broth and I really enjoyed this as a precursor for the meal. Up next was the first fried chicken basket, which was the plain fried chicken. They brought it out with some kimchi, a scallion salad, pickled celery and radishes, and four dipping sauces – a green cilantro-y sauce, honey mustard, pepper parmesan, and gochujang BBQ. My first piece was a drumstick and as soon as I took my first bite, I was in love! The batter was so crispy and crunchy and stayed that way throughout the whole meal. The chicken inside was perfectly juicy and so flavorful. You didn’t even need the sauces, but they just added to the whole experience. My favorite sauce was definitely the pepper parmesan, which was so creamy and spicy and paired perfectly with the chicken. The pickled veggies were perfect refreshers in between bites of the chicken. The scallion salad was bitter, yet light and it was my favorite accompaniment from the veggies. 

After we ate a good amount of the first bucket, they brought out our soy garlic fried chicken, the mac & cheese and the coleslaw. The coleslaw was just your standard coleslaw and as it was an extra, I would skip it if you go. On the other hand, the baked mac and cheese was delicious and was bubbling when it came out! It was so creamy and flavorful, and made for a nice addition to the meal. The soy garlic chicken was also delicious! The sauce was full of garlicky, umami flavor, and while I really enjoyed it, I think I preferred the plain chicken. I enjoyed the taste of the chicken and thought that having it drenched in the sauce took away some of that flavor, and preferred adding my own sauces when I felt like it.

Next was the cold perilla noodles with celery and black pepper. Perilla is an herb often used in Korean cuisine that has a taste similar to mint. These noodles were shockingly good! They were in perilla soy sauce that had such a unique flavor, it kind of reminded me of matcha. I finished this dish within a minute and found myself sad that I did not have more of it. 

Our last dish was the soft-serve frozen yogurt. This came with some fresh blueberry jam on the side. I loved this and thought it was the perfect ending. The froyo was tart and refreshing, while the jam was sweet and added a beautiful contrast of flavors. 

Overall: I am so happy I finally got to try this place. I highly recommend going here for a fun, new experience. I just recommend that you either walk in 30 minutes before opening to grab a spot at the bar, or set a lot of Resy Notifies on and snag one as people cancel.

Must orders: The Bucket List prefix is really all you need for the full experience!