Korean BBQ

16 W 22nd Street, New York, 10010

New York, USA

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Overall Rating (out of 10): 7.00

Stand Out Dish: marinated short rib

Meal Time: 2.00hrs

Ave Cost Per Head (excl. drinks): £43

Summary: worth a visit for the high spots but still prefer the more traditional low key versions available in K Town

Would I Go Back? Maybe

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As with most things New York, the entrance to Cote is very unassuming, underneath scaffolding on an ordinary street with a dark semi translucent glass front and a large black wooden door.

However, once you cross the transom you immediately start to wonder whether you have entered into a nightclub by mistake. A long wide exposed concrete corridor leads you past a coat check towards the restaurant all while you are bathed in loud edgy music and atmosphere. At the end of the corridor is a right turn leading your directly to a circular bar with the main restaurant expanding back behind you and towards the front where you walked in.

Continuing with the nightclub theme the restaurant is very dimly light. The only meaningful light being powerful spotlights positioned above the barbecue at the centre of each table recreating a scene from a spooky warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark or the X Files.

We kicked things off with two negronis at the bar which were simple and well made.

Each table fits about four people on two benches and has a elegant whole black marble slab as the dining surface. At the centre of each table is a traditional Korean BBQ with the exception that it is a gas grill over a faux charcoal bed as opposed to using real coals.

We opted for the Butcher’s Feast set menu which focused on a selection of four different meats to be prepared on the barbecue: hanger steak, 45 day aged rib eye, American wagyu and marinated short rib.

All of the cooking is done for you and at the start and throughout the grill is greased using a beef fat off cut which has the theatrical extra of producing large flame plumes as the fat catches the grill below.

After ordering the food we were handed a wine list which is a first for me at a Korean restaurant. The list was extensive and interesting and we plumped for a 1996 Talbot not least to celebrate my first time abroad since the start of the pandemic. At 4.25x retail it felt like a steep mark-up.

Out of the four meat feast the marinated short rib was the star. A sweet soy based sauced heighten the flavour of an incredibly tender cut of meat.

Always one of my favourite dishes at a Korean restaurant, Cote’s egg soufflé did not disappoint. It was cooked and seasoned perfectly resulting in a light fluffy omelette like accompaniment to our meat courses.

Neither of us liked our soups. The predominant flavour was sour but worse was the texture of grainy/gravelly broth that really didn’t work.

There was nothing wrong with the dessert but it was a bit of an odd end to an otherwise high brow well executed meal.

Verdict
Call me an old fuddy duddy but the thing that bothered me the most about Cote was that the music and atmosphere was so loud that I really struggled to hear my dinner companion let along maintain an easy conversation. The meal was mixed between BBQ based high spots, soup based low spots and takeaway ice cream cup strange spots.